Tough Love?

It didn't take much to make him angry. Just a word, a look, an object out of place.



She spent so much of her day on tenterhooks. Did I get that right? Should I try that differently? Dare I say that out loud?



He always said he loved her afterwards. Cringing on the floor, head in her hands, knees in her chest, bruised and sore, crying quietly (any louder would have set him off again), he stroked her hair, dressed her wounds, called her sweetheart, said he'd die without her.



When the baby came along she had nine blissful months of peace. He showed a side she had not seen since before their courtship. It proved her downfall. It gave her false hope. It made her believe she could recapture it. She never did.



The Law didn't help. After the first hospitalisation, they took the baby away. They housed him safely with a family who already had four children, who would take care of him, show him the kind of love that would make him whole, healthy. She fought tooth and nail to get him back, of course, but as long as she stood by her man, or knelt by her man, or crumpled by her man, there was no winning.



She was trapped: trapped by her love for a man who would, eventually, kill her.



Her son? He went on to fight for the rights of the victims of domestic abuse. He saved many broken lives. All but the one he was powerless to effect.