580 North

I was driving on the 580-freeway heading north along the golden hills of the East Bay. It was around 6:30 in the evening, raining, and traffic was moving painfully slow. I shared glances of frustration with other drivers as we relented to the stop-and-go motion of our cars. It was as if we were a herd of cattle headed for the slaughterhouse. The sky was grey and the rain was coming down hard on the windshield making it difficult to see. My wipers did the best they could to keep up. I had my window opened a crack to let out the cigarette smoke so as to avoid a fight with Charlie, my eleven-year-old daughter as she was known to lecture me on the effects of cigarette smoking. Drops of water occasionally hit my arm, a reminder that it was insane to expose her to my disgusting habit, but at that time we knew nothing about second-hand smoke. Charlie sat in silence, doing her best to look disinterested in me while I kept the Giants game on to fill the space between us. Because of the rain delay, the broadcasters were interviewing retired first baseman, Willie McCovey. Charlie hated listening to sports on the radio when we were in the car, but I figured if she wasn’t going to talk to me, then what was the harm.

I was abandoning her. I thought this, but my brain was not functioning correctly. The only rational decision I could make was to not go back there, and by “there,” I meant our home. I was determined that the abuse I had endured from her father would never be passed onto her. I thought that giving her a choice would keep her safe. I thought that with her father having her, he would not come after me.

“Charlie, please. Look at me,” I pleaded. Silence. Her ankles twisted up to her knees, my daughter refused to face me. She glared out the window at passing traffic, and I could see the tears streaming down her face and I could hear the struggle in her breath to hold back the cries that were welling up inside. Everything in me wanted to turn that car around and drive us as far away from her father, but I knew I could not do it. The helplessness I was feeling was nothing less than hallow and numbing. “This is the worst day of my life,” I thought. It was to be the last day I would live with my then, eleven-year-old daughter.

I tried not to cry, attempting to form words into logical sentences. “Charlie, you know I can never go back to living on Henry Lane. Your father refuses to give up the house. I want you to choose where you want to live.” Silence again. I reached for her hand. “Honey.” Her hands were balled up into two fists. “I understand if you don’t want to leave your friends and our home,” I tried again. But you can always live with your grandmother and me. I know it’s crowded but you can.” My younger sister, leaving a failed marriage, had just moved down from Suquamish with her two little babies. Divorce seemed to be our family curse.

“Great,” she said. “Then I’ll live with Dad and you can go live with Grandma.” This was a dig at me. “I don’t care. Besides, you’re much stronger than he is. You can live without me.” This was another dig, or so I thought. I would realize many years later that she truly believed this. Having witnessed her father’s attempt at suicide and seeing me withstand his beatings had a demoralizing effect on her.

As we pulled up to the dead end of the hill, I was filled with terror. The eucalyptus trees that lined our little dirt road whooshed back and forth wildly in the wind. Flooded by the downpour, the road now looked like a small river. I tried to drive up the road. The car swerved back and forth, fighting me, and the wheels spun idly from left to right. Mud splashed up onto the side windows and was just as quickly washed away by the rain. Charlie let out a sigh with an attitude of annoyance. I tried to get control of the car but only managed to stop it under one of the trees. This would do as a parking spot, long enough for me to try and talk to Charlie before she headed into the house. I put out my cigarette and turned off the radio. This was my final appeal.

Just as I was about to speak, our neighbor Eddy came speeding down the road in his El Camino. Like a bat out of hell, he was driving without any caution, completely oblivious to how his driving might endanger his two small children and wife. Charlie and I simultaneously said our usual, “There goes Eddy,” but this time we both flinched and shrieked as he just missed swiping Charlie’s side of the car. Just as quickly as he appeared, the back of his car disappeared over the hill. We could hear the sound of his tires screeching as he burned rubber. He and his wife had their fair share of fights as well and the Sheriff’s office was no stranger to either of our homes. Their divorce would follow shortly after ours.

I had left many times before with Charlie, hiding out at friends or with family, each time eventually to be tracked down by her father, my then husband. Just two months before this day, while Charlie and I were at my mother’s, he came to the door. Eerily calm, he asked me to come to his car to talk with him. As I bent down to get into his Corvette, he pulled out a gun. “Now, tell me the truth,” he yelled. “I want the truth about all your boyfriends. I want it now. I want this marriage to work out between us. So, you have to come clean and come home.”

To which I said, “It’s not going to work, Max. Isn’t it obvious? You have to use a gun on me. It’s over. It will never work out.” He stuck the gun in my crotch and then in my mouth and demanded that I come back home. He wanted a confession from me of boyfriends I never had. Resigned, I looked him in the eyes and said, “I want you to shoot me now. Kill me now but don’t cripple me. Just kill me.”

“Okay, go ahead and get out,” he said.

I opened the door and stepped out. As I walked away I thought, “It’s now or never God.” I made it to the front door, turned the knob, closing it behind me and fell to the floor. My mother and daughter rushed to me and held me as I cried. My mother locked the door. Her questions just whizzed past me, as I was now deadened.

I was finally leaving my husband, never to return. Here we were now, two months later, outside the home my husband and I had bought with my money, and I was asking my daughter what she wanted to do one last time. “Are you sure this is what you want to do? Understand that I will never live in that house again. I can never come back while your dad is still alive. If I come back here, I would never be safe in this house.” My eyes were so filled with tears. It was difficult to see.

Charlie’s eyes were wide open, and with no tears now, she answered, “Okay, well, I’ll go home then.”

I wasn’t surprised at the finality of her answer. I knew that she wanted to be with both her dad and me but I also knew she wanted her home, her bed, her things and her friends. Knowing this kept me sane at the times when I thought I would kill myself. She kissed me quickly and turned away with her head down. I sat in the car and watched her little body dart up the road, her duffle bag covering her head. As she ran up the stairs, rain and mud splashing her calves; her dad opened the door. They embraced. I turned away, my hands were shaking and my heart sunk. How could I possibly be leaving my only child, my daughter with a man who is so utterly violent and frightening? I couldn’t move and I couldn’t stand to stay but turning the key to my ignition felt like moving through concrete. Was I really doing this? I kept thinking I had to be the worst mother to birth a child. I was young, terrified and desperately lost. My decisions were not grounded in faith but rather in fear.

I started the car and I quickly maneuvered the steering wheel and began driving down the hill. Memories of our love story, the day we were married and the hope I once had came flooding back. Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird was playing on the radio. Tears washed the coldness from my face, warm tears, never-ending, and relentless, poured from the depths of my soul. I sunk there, driving and shaking like a feral dog. Caring less and less about the direction of the steering wheel. Perhaps I would accidentally crash into a pine tree and die. More likely I would just drive on home.