Safe With Me (21 page)

“Holy
shit,
” Natalie says under her breath as the rest of the students silently find their seats.

Satisfied, the professor smiles—a beautiful movement that suddenly makes her appear warm and thoughtful instead of hard shelled and rough. “I’m Regina Lang,” she continues in a pleasant, normal tone. “Please call me Professor Lang or Regina. Mrs. Lang is my mother.” Everyone titters appropriately at her joke, and she goes on. “If you’re not supposed to be in Criminology 201, you should leave now. Otherwise, let’s get started.” She flips open a laptop in front of her, and a large theater screen behind her lights up with an image of a man choking a woman. His fingers are wrapped tightly around her neck, and he is grimacing, the muscles in his arms straining beneath his skin in ropy cords. The woman’s face is red and her eyes are bulging, her hands tear at the man’s wrists, seemingly trying to get him to release her. And even though Olivia knows these people have to be actors—the picture can’t be real—her muscles immediately go rigid.
Is
that
what I looked like ten years ago?
she wonders.
Before Maddie got sick . . . the night I first decided I needed to leave James?
She pushes those thoughts down, trying to breathe, wanting to hear what Regina says next.

“I want you to think about what you would do if you were this man’s lawyer,” Professor Lang begins. “If this scene is what the police walked in on after a neighbor called 911 and the
woman in the picture decided to press charges against her husband for attempted murder.” She pauses. “Is there any defense for this man? If there are pictures of his finger marks around his wife’s neck? If she has years of hospital records listing numerous broken bones—spiral fractures of her forearms, a shattered cheekbone?”

“He’s indefensible,” a girl’s prim voice pops up from somewhere in the auditorium. “And she’s an idiot for not reporting it sooner.”

Her words make Olivia feel ill. She leans forward, arms over her stomach, and Natalie puts a hand on her back. “Hey, are you okay?” she asks, and Olivia straightens. “I’m fine,” she whispers. “I just didn’t have breakfast.”

Natalie reaches into her bag and pulls out a cereal bar—the kind Maddie can’t eat because of her celiac disease. Olivia gives Natalie a brief smile and thanks her, taking the bar, even though she doesn’t think she can eat it. She turns her attention back to what Professor Lang is saying to the girl who called the woman in the picture an idiot.

“And what do you base your judgment of this woman upon?” Professor Lang’s expression is blank, and Olivia can’t tell if she agrees with the girl’s proclamation or not. “Do you know her? Do you understand there are a hundred possible reasons why she might not have reported her husband’s abuse?” She pauses, runs her gaze over all the students. “Anyone want to hazard a guess at a reason?”

“Maybe he’s threatened to take custody away from her,” Olivia says loudly, unsure why, exactly, she speaks up, but that it likely has to do with the fact that Regina seems to understand something Olivia thought no one else could. “Maybe he’s extremely
powerful and respected in the community. She knows if she presses charges against him, he’ll find a way to prove her unfit and she’ll lose her children.”

Professor Lang peers at the back row, making a visor out of her hand. “Can you say that again, please? It’s a large room, and I don’t think everyone caught it.”

Olivia takes a deep breath before repeating herself, and is ridiculously pleased when the professor nods in agreement. “That’s right. People tend to have this image of abused women as weak, low income, and uneducated, when in fact, the opposite is often true. Many women stay because their husbands are upstanding, successful men and they think no one will believe them if they tell the truth about what’s going on behind closed doors. Abusers are expert manipulators—of their victims and everyone else in their lives.” She pauses, moving her gaze over the room. “But here’s my point—and the reason I opened class with this particular picture. If you feel like you can make a case to defend the husband, then you should think about focusing your studies on defense law. If your heart aches at the plight of the wife and you feel like you sort of want to tear the husband’s eyes out, you might do better in prosecution. I use the picture to show you how polarizing legal issues can be, and how varied and muddy our individual reactions are, too. We’re all shaded by our personal experiences and perceptions. That’s the most difficult aspect of working in the legal system, whether you are a cop, lawyer, or judge. Staying neutral, relying on process and procedure to do its job, can seem impossible. And yet, if you remain in this program, you’ll need to learn how.”

The room is silent again, everyone seeming to allow her words to sink in, and for the rest of the class, during which Professor
Lang goes over the syllabus and discusses the literal definitions of
probable cause,
Olivia is haunted by the image of that woman on the screen. She wonders if becoming a lawyer is really such a good idea, considering her life with James. Would she be better off prosecuting the men who abuse their partners, or defending the women who sometimes snap and kill them? Will she be too close to the issues involved to do her job? When she was younger and working as a paralegal, she’d always imagined herself as a defense lawyer, researching case law to vindicate her wrongly accused clients. But what would she do if her client were guilty—if he wrapped his fingers around his wife’s throat and squeezed until she was almost dead? She isn’t sure if she could defend a man like that now. She’s afraid she might just shoot him instead.

These questions concern her deeply enough that after class ends, Olivia works up the courage to approach her professor on the stage. She waits as the other students talk with her then walk away—she doesn’t want anyone else to overhear her. When the last of the other students is gone, Professor Lang looks up and smiles at Olivia. “Ah, a grown-up. What can I do for you . . . ?” She trails off, waiting to hear Olivia’s name.

Olivia introduces herself, then shifts her weight from foot to foot, gripping the straps on her shoulder bag, as though this might keep her from running away. “Well,” she begins, haltingly. “I was hoping I could ask you about a hypothetical situation.”

“Of course,” Professor Lang says, tilting her head toward one shoulder, slipping both hands into the pockets on her slacks, then rocking forward and back, toe to heel.

“Great-okay-thanks,” Olivia says, hurriedly, squeezing the
words together so that they almost come out as one. “I’m wondering . . . what if you had a student who is interested in the law, but she’s not sure if she would be a good candidate for becoming a lawyer.”

“Why not?” Again, Olivia can’t tell what her professor is really thinking from the expression on her face—it’s careful and measured, something she must have learned from her years on the police force. She confirmed her previous career during her lecture, citing a back injury for her early retirement from the force and subsequent switch to teaching.

Olivia swallows to help wet the case of dry mouth she’s suddenly developed. “Maybe she’s had some trauma in her life,” she says quietly, not making eye contact with her new teacher. “And she’s worried she’d be too personally influenced by this to do a good job . . . as a defense lawyer
or
a prosecutor.” She pauses, finally looking up. “Do you have any advice I could pass along?”

Professor Lang blows out a quick shot of air from between pursed lips before speaking. “Well, that depends. What kind of trauma are we talking about?”

Olivia hesitates, unsure how close she should keep her hypothetical situation to the truth. “Let’s say she’s been attacked. More than once.”

“Like raped?”

Olivia’s face burns and her stomach twists at the sound of this word. She’s struck silent by images of James on top of her after he’s hit her—after she’s told him no over and over again—pushing himself into her anyway, like he is jabbing her body with a knife.
Is it rape when your husband tells you he’s only doing it to show you he’s sorry?

She bobs her head, trying to keep her expression clear of the revulsion she feels. “Yes,” she finally says. “And beaten.” She thought she could do this without falling apart. She thought if she made it seem like it happens to an imaginary woman, she wouldn’t give herself away. Professor Lang’s expression—blond brows stitched together, the deep curve of a concerned frown—tells her different. She knows Olivia is talking about herself.

“I would tell her that she needs to get serious professional help before she makes any kind of commitment to this career path. Or any other, for that matter. Things come up when you’re trying cases . . . triggers that spark all sorts of weird emotional baggage. Victims of abuse can sometimes turn their past suffering into motivation to help other people, but only if they’ve dealt with it on the deepest levels.” She gives Olivia a good, long look. “Even then, it’s a challenge for them to work within a system that betrays them more often than not.”

All Olivia can manage to say is “Oh.” She is reeling—not only from the images of James swirling in her head but from the realization that if she ever leaves her husband, if she ever works up the courage to confess how he treats her, she won’t be seen as the woman who nobly endured years of abuse in order to protect her daughter—she’ll be seen as a victim. The idiot woman who let her husband beat her. Who let him rape her and never said a word to anyone. Shame burns through Olivia’s body, making her feel ashy and weak. She suddenly wants nothing more than to escape this room. What the hell was she thinking, talking to her professor about this?

“Does that help any?” Professor Lang asks.

“I think so,” Olivia says, forcing a weak smile. Yes, it helps.
It helps Olivia realize that she’s made a huge mistake, attending this class. And another mistake, talking to her teacher. “Thanks for your time. I appreciate it.”

“That’s why I’m here.” Her professor closes up her laptop and slides it into a carrying case, then looks at Olivia again. “It was you, right?”

“Me?” The word barely squeaks out of Olivia.
Is she going to make me admit what James does to me? Oh god. I’m so stupid.

Her professor nods. “Right. You spoke up in the back row, at the beginning of class?”

Relieved this is what Professor Lang wants to know, Olivia bobs her head, once, and turns, ready to walk away, but then her teacher stops her with a hand on her arm. “A person like that could talk with me anytime she wants . . . okay? I can help.” She pauses and gives Olivia another look that leaves no doubt she sees right through her. “My hypothetical door’s always open.”

Olivia pulls away, feeling her professor’s eyes on her back as she leaves the auditorium. She walks quickly to her car, knowing she needs to get home, and suddenly, no matter how hard she fights them, she’s unable to stop the memories she pushed down earlier from tumbling through her mind—the image of that night ten years ago, the first time James put his hands around her neck and took her breath away.

I was six the first time I saw marks on my mother’s skin. I hadn’t been diagnosed with my liver disorder yet, so I was like any little girl—I went to school and played with other kids at the park. I still spent a lot of time with my mom, though, because my dad was at the office more than he was home.

“He has to work hard to take care of us,” Mom told me when I asked why Dad wasn’t going to come to my dance recital like he’d promised he would. I was going to be a purple flower and I wanted my daddy to see it. I was going to do the
splits
.

“But I want him to
come,
” I replied with a stomp of my foot. I wanted a daddy who spent time with me, who built forts in the living room and gave me airplane rides in our front yard, spinning me in circles until I was too dizzy to walk. What I had was a daddy who’d rather be at work, buying money, which is what he once told me was his job. “Buying and selling money, peanut,” he said, giving me a quick tweak on my nose. “People
give me money to make them
more
money. Everyone wants more money . . . don’t you?”

He looked at me expectantly, so I nodded solemnly, knowing he wanted me to agree with him, and I, as always, wanting to make him happy. Part of me believed that if I was just good enough—if on the nights he came home before I went to bed, I remembered to fold my napkin in my lap at the dinner table and not slurp from my glass of milk—he would stop being gone so much. If I picked up my room and didn’t leave Legos on the floor for him to accidentally step on with his bare feet in the middle of the night, he would be like the fathers I saw drop their daughters off at school, giving them kisses on the head and quick hugs by the front doors for everyone to see.

“I know you do, baby,” my mother said, tucking my blanket up around my neck. “I’ll talk with him, okay?”

Later that night, I woke to the sound of my parents fighting in their bedroom, my father’s angry voice and my mother’s quiet cries as familiar to me as my own. Pushing back my covers, I tiptoed out of my room and down the hall to theirs, standing as still as possible so they wouldn’t know I was awake. I pressed my palms and one ear flat against the door and listened.

“Are you saying I’m a
bad father
?” I heard my dad say, the words sounding more like an animal’s growl than a man speaking. “Are you saying I don’t provide the both of you an amazing life? A beautiful house? Everything and anything you might need? Is
that
what you’re saying to me, Liv?”

“She needs you, James,” my mother responded. “She needs her father to be with her. She doesn’t need more things or more money. She’s only
six
. She loves you so much and you just walk away from her over and over again.” There was a brief moment
of silence and I strained to hear if they were whispering. But then my mother continued. “Please. Come to the recital. Be the father you never had.”

My father’s feet pounded across the floor—I felt the vibration from where I stood. “
I
am not my
father
!” he shouted. There was a loud crash, and my mother gave a short, high-pitched scream before the noise was cut off and everything went silent, except for my father grunting. My heart pounded against the inside of my chest and my eyes filled with tears. I was desperate to open the door, but too terrified of what I might see. My mother cried out again, a strangled noise, a word I couldn’t fully understand. It could have been “help.”