“When I met you, I thought your commitment to your parents was commendable. Daddy’s little girl, always will be.” He laughs at himself, at both of us. “I was fine with it. Believed it proof how much you valued family.”
“I do.” But what is the value of a family when it is a kaleidoscope of broken glass? Each turn, each twist, is just another view of shattered pieces thrown together. When raised with the belief that you are perfect within an imperfect world, you fear one day you too will fall from grace. “You know what they mean to me.”
“Yet, you don’t want one of your own,” he accuses.
He’s waiting for an answer. A reason why I would have lied to him. I imagine telling him about my family—the facts that he has no idea about. I have given him a fantasy to believe in, a reality based on a story I have created. If I told him my father, the man I love with all my heart, beat my sisters and Mama, then it would alter his view of me. Because what does it say about me to love a man like that?
“No,” I start and then stop. How do I explain that in the maze of my existence, if I turned even slightly one way or the other, if I became someone other than who I was, then I too chanced being pierced? In telling Eric, I would have to pull aside the curtain and reveal all the ugliness that makes up my existence. Then he would have to ask the question, the one I refuse to answer—did Papa love me because I’m a reflection of him? “I don’t want children,” I admit quietly.
He blinks away the heartbreak shining through his eyes. A wall comes down, his love lost with my refusal to reveal the truth. “I deserved to know that. I could have lived with that.” His head drops in defeat. “I can’t live with you lying to me. I deserved better. I gave you better.”
Six. Seven.
“What are you saying?”
Eight.
“I’m saying I want a separation.”
MARIN
Every nine seconds, a woman is assaulted or beaten in the United States. Marin can repeat the statistic from memory. Since her discovery of the bruises on Gia’s body, she has researched all the facts. One in ten girls admits to having experienced physical violence in her dating relationship, a one-year study found. The majority of teen abuse occurs in the home.
Since their conversation, Gia and Marin have avoided one another, Marin vacillating between shock and outrage. A perfect life mapped out is fallen to shambles. When Raj returned, Gia stared at Marin silently, wondering whether she would reveal her secret. For Marin, a lifetime of keeping them made the decision easy. She acted as if nothing was wrong. So, they continued, Gia and Marin acting out their fairy-tale life while Raj remained oblivious.
Marin tried twice more to approach Gia, demanding to know how the bruises came to be. Both times Gia shook her head no. Told Marin it didn’t matter. “I’m fine, Mom.” But she was not fine, and Marin was at a loss about how to make it better. But as if she were a child, the decision was made for Marin.
Two days after their confrontation, Gia is preparing to leave for school. As she reaches up to grab the cereal box from the cupboard, her shirt sleeve falls back, revealing a fresh bruise on her arm.
“What is this?” Marin breathes, but she already knows. The grip of a hand around the forearm, tight enough to hold the person in place for a hit across the face, or one in the stomach.
“Nothing, Mom.” Gia quickly covers it with her sleeve. Leaving the cereal, she starts to move out of the kitchen when Marin stands in front of her.
“If I peel your shirt back, there’ll be a fresh one on your torso, right?” Marin knew it was the way it worked. Before the old bruises could fully disappear, a new one would emerge. Almost as if the abuser needed to see his or her artwork on display. To mark the beaten as owned, possessed, for anyone foolish enough to intervene.
“No,” Gia says urgently, dropping her voice. “Why would you say such a thing?”