November/December 2000
My Knight in Shining Armor
That Wasn't
by Kristi Sayles
Hey, Mom, how 'bout letting me stay up all night tonight?" my son, Jay, asked. "No school tomorrow, and I could watch Josh and Tyler while you and Tommy talk," he added with an impish grin.
I thought about the request and realized it was a harmless one. With teens you have to choose your battles, and this one wasn't really worth fighting over. "Well, okay, but you be nice to the kids. Play legos with them or something."
Jay smiled and gave me a high five.
"You're pretty cool for a mom," he said before going into his room.
The doorbell rang. I opened it to be greeted by a small, dark-eyed child jumping into my arms.
"Hi, Mom!" he said.
"Hi, Sweetie, but you know I'm not really your mom yet. The wedding's not for a whole month!"
"I wish it were tonight!" Tommy said, pulling Tyler and me to him in a delicious embrace. "Which is what I want to talk about."
Josh stuck his head out of the bedroom door. "Hey, Ty, come in here and play Nintendo with us."
Tyler wriggled out of my grasp and ran out of sight.
"We've got plans to make," Tommy said as we cuddled on the couch to pour over brochures. "How would you like to go to the Smoky Mountains for our honeymoon? I've already made the reservations."
"Oh, Tommy, that sounds wonderful!" I cried. "Can we afford it?"
"I've been saving, so don't you worry your pretty little head about that stuff. Let the man deal with the man's stuff. Nothing's too good for my Precious Little Lady."
That's what he always called me -- his Precious Little Lady. I slid my hands around his shoulders and laid my head against him. He had sounded so macho. He was often like that. He had already stated that he preferred for me not to work outside the home after our marriage, but I was sure I could change his mind about that later. I mean, why start an argument a month before our wedding?
Tommy was my "knight in shining armor." He had rescued me from my loneliness after my first husband had fallen in love with another woman, and we had divorced.
I pulled Tommy's arm around me closer. How lucky I was!
Suddenly, Jay popped into the room. "Hey, Mom, have you seen my fan?"
"Shouldn't you be in bed, young man?" Tommy asked sternly.
"I told," I started but was interrupted.
"I'll deal with this, Kristi."
"Mom told me that I could stay up all night if I want to," Jay explained.
Tommy shook his head. "No way. It's almost 10:00. You put Josh and Tyler down, and then you go to bed yourself."
"But Mom said"
"I don't care what Mom said!" Tommy growled between clenched teeth. "I told you to go to bed!"
"You're not my father!" Jay screamed angrily. Tommy didn't want to hear any more. He stood up and stormed out the front door.
Jay stood in the doorway, watching him.
"Look, Mom, Tommy's smoking! Didn't he tell us he quit three weeks ago?"
I went to the doorway for a better look. It was true. There he was puffing away while pacing back and forth in front of the apartment building. Where had he gotten a cigarette? He had promised!
"You're nothing but a rotten liar!" Jay yelled out the door before I could stop him. "I hate you!"
Tommy glared at Jay and went for him, dropping the cigarette. "You little son of a b___! I'll teach you to talk to me like that!"
He shoved Jay to the floor with a painful thump, making his head hit the wall.
I lost control of my senses. I attacked the man like a wild bearcat protecting her cub. How dare he!
Tommy wasted no time knocking me to the floor beside my furious son.
"I'll tell Daddy on you!" Jay screamed, reaching frantically for the phone.
Tommy was too quick. In one jerk, he grabbed the telephone and pulled it out of the socket, overturning a small table. He stood there with the phone cord in his hand, wild-eyed.
Jay jumped to his feet and ran past him. "Help! Help!" he called as he ran through the parking lot. "Tommy's gonna kill Mama! He's gone crazy! Help!"
"Oh, my God," Tommy mumbled, crumpling to the floor. "What have I done?"
As I stared at him, incapable of speech or clear thought, a police officer burst through the door accompanied by my tearful thirteen-year-old. "There he is!" Jay pointed at Tommy. "He hit me, and then he hit Mama!"
"Did she struggle with you, Sir?" the police officer asked as he locked handcuffs around Tommy's wrists. Tommy's eyes sought mine. "No, no, she didn't. None of this was her fault. Honey, I'm so sorry." Talk about a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!
"Well, that's nice to know. If so, I'd have to take you both in." With that he took Tommy away.
My knight in shining armor was an abusive man! How could that be? Small remnants of things began to come to me slowly. Things that I had tried not to think about. He HAD been a bit overbearing at times. Hadn't he insisted that I not be employed after we got married? He knew that I had a substitute teaching position that I loved. Come to think of it, he had insisted that we attend the church that he liked instead of mine. And there was that annoying thing he often did -- ordering my dinner for me at restaurants without asking me. Those seemed like relatively unimportant facets of our relationship at the time -- things I assumed that I could change later.
Five years later and five years wiser, I can see that God was protecting me from making a miserable mistake by marrying the wrong man. I had wanted him to be "Mr. Right" so badly that I had been willing to ignore the warning signs of an abusive relationship.
Kristi Sayles is a freelance writer and elementary school teacher in Tennessee.
Are You Living in an Abusive Relationship?
|
Facts About Abuse
|