Rebuilding a life is harder than destroying one.
The first year was tough. I had nightmares. I flinched when people raised their voices. I checked the locks on my apartment door five times a night.
But I had help.
Lauren, surprisingly, became a part of our lives. She testified against her parents in their separate trial. They got two years of probation and community service—a slap on the wrist, maybe, but their reputation was destroyed. They moved to another state in shame.
Lauren visits Miles every Sunday. She is trying to unlearn the toxicity of her upbringing. We are healing together.
I started a blog about surviving domestic abuse during pregnancy. It went viral. Women from all over the world wrote to me. They told me their stories of 5 a.m. wake-up calls, of financial control, of the silence that kills.
I realized I wasn’t just a survivor. I was a witness.
One afternoon, I was sitting in the park with Miles. He was two years old now, toddling around in the grass, chasing a butterfly.
He fell down.
He looked up at me, his lip trembling, waiting to see how I would react. Would I yell? Would I mock him?
I walked over. I knelt down. I picked him up and brushed the dirt off his knees. Continue reading…
