A Memory of Shame For A Young Woman

Ilived in a home filled with fear and anger. I was young, eighteen, living with my first boyfriend, who most recently had become physically abusive. My induction to love was an extension of my relationship with my father. Always reaching for the unattainable, never receiving the approval I was looking for. I was starved, subconsciously looking for male attention.

With my father, I never existed. But with this man, I sought to hide.

I was coming in from work one evening, being the sole provider, while he had been laid off his most recent construction job.

“Hey!” “How was your day?” I asked him closing the front door.

“Fine.” He said abruptly barely looking up.

I watched him rub my face cream, that I had worked overtime to purchase, into his hands and arms.

“Please don’t use that moisturizer on your hands.” I asked “It was expensive and it’s meant for the face.”

Suddenly, I felt and heard the jar whizz closely past my left ear, then smash into the door behind me.

I whipped around and saw the hole in the hollow panel of the entry closet.

“You almost hit me in the head!” I exclaimed panting a little out of fear and anger.

“Bitch! Don’t tell me what to do.” Was all he said.

Shaking a little, I set my purse down and quietly picked the face cream off the floor. I walked, head down, eyes averted, into the bathroom to gather my composure and hide my shame.

Humiliation, embarrassment, terror and ignorance kept me frozen. I lingered in the bathroom, dreading the moment I would have to come out, blotting my tears quickly with my fingers. I loathed showing my hurt. My skin turned hot and cold as my emotions saturated my skin and brain. I was helpless and stuck in that place in time. I accepted his behavior with some resentment, vowing to be more careful of what I said to him in an effort to avoid further confrontation.

The next day, I walked in the front door, same time, exhausted from the long day at work.

“I’m home!” I sing songed to the living room air.

“Hi!” he responded walking into the room.

I turned around to hang my coat in the entry closet. The hole was gone.

“Where did the hole go that was in the door?” I asked him.

“What hole?”

“The one you made when you threw the jar at my head yesterday!” I exclaimed.

“What are you talking about? I never did that!” he denied smirking.

“I know you tried to hurt me yesterday, what did you do?” I insisted.

“Your crazy. I didn’t do anything to you…. I don’t know what you are talking about.” He sauntered out of the room, not meeting my piercing gaze.

I actually took pause for a moment…. did I imagine what happened?

No! I know what he did, and rage filled my body. I was too scared to push the issue and dropped the subject. I wandered into the kitchen to start dinner and thought about the new twist to his behavior.

Several weeks later, I found the door with the hole in it, turned inwards and upside down, rehung on a back closet.