Yesterday, I Cried_ Celebrating the Lessons of Living and Loving - Iyanla Vanzant [67]
Only a man who loves you gives you his money. Rhonda was so grateful to be loved that she was willing to do her best to return the favor. So grateful, in fact, she decided to have John’s child. And it wasn’t until she became pregnant that John started accusing her of being with other men. It wasn’t until after Rhonda told John that she was pregnant that someone had started calling the house, and when she answered, hanging up. One night, after several such calls, she decided to stop answering for the rest of the evening. When John came home, he went crazy, even though Rhonda explained to him why she wasn’t answering the phone.
“How am I supposed to know where you are? I thought something happened to you and the kids. Are you crazy?”
“John, it’s late. Leave me alone,” Rhonda answered. She pulled the covers over her head and tried to turn over onto her pregnant belly. John grabbed her up out of the bed and slapped her so hard she hit the floor. He snatched her up and slapped her again. Rhonda tried to get away. He straddled her. She screamed. He slapped her again, this time telling her to “Shut your f——g mouth!” Then he began his interrogation. “Where have you been? Who have you been with?” Each time she didn’t respond, he would slap her. When she did respond, he’d slap her and call her a liar.
The noise of furniture crashing and Rhonda crying woke the children. John ordered them back to bed and ordered Rhonda to shut up. Perhaps if he’d stopped throwing her onto the bed, picking her up from the bed and slapping her, she would have been absolutely quiet. When John felt the onset of an asthma attack, he slapped Rhonda one final time before retreating into the bathroom for his medication. Rhonda picked herself up, took her children back to their beds, and stayed with them until they fell asleep. Then she crawled into bed with the man who had just beaten her pregnant body and had sex with him. It made her sick to her stomach.
The afternoon breeze felt good against my face. It was refreshing, and I certainly needed to be refreshed. The walk back home always seemed shorter than the walk to the pond. When I opened the door, the dog greeted me. She is cute. A pain in the butt, but cute nonetheless. My husband was doing his favorite Sunday chore. Watching television. When he turned and saw my face, he tried to think of something to say. He couldn’t find the words, so he stood up, walked over, and gave me a hug. Feeling the strength of his arms around me, I started to cry. “This is so hard. I hate it!”
“You can do it. I know you can,” he whispered. “You have to do it. You won’t feel right until you do. Take your time. Just take your time.”
I had been at it almost four hours and I still hadn’t figured out why I needed to fire Karen. He made us some tea, turned off the television, and I shared with him some of what I was remembering.
Rhonda was staring at her battered face in the bathroom mirror when, suddenly, a woman appeared in the mirror behind her. Rhonda jumped! She spun around, but no one was there. Her face was a mess. Each time the children saw her, they cried. Her eyes, lips, and nose were swollen out of all proportion. John was so disgusted with himself, he didn’t come home for four days. On the third night of his absence, Rhonda had a dream about the woman that she had seen in the mirror. Her name, she said, was Carmen. She introduced herself as Rhonda’s friend, who had “always been there.” Her message was clear: “Leave this place! Leave the man with whom you are now living. I will tell you where to go and what to do. As soon as your baby girl is born, you must leave. If you do not leave, he will kill you. Do you trust me?”
For Rhonda, it was unusual to remember a dream. But she remembered this