I Know Why She Stayed

DEDICATION

To all the women who never escaped.

Who are still trapped and seeking refuge.

We know why you stay.

You are not alone.

DEDICATION FROM KASEY ROGERS

Resilience is knowing that you are the only one

that has the power and the responsibility

to pick yourself up.

~ Mary Holloway

For the Beans.

DEDICATION FROM K. J. HARROWICK

To my niece, Destiny.

You almost made it.

You fought so hard to escape.

Life took you first,

but you’ll live on in our hearts and the smiles you left behind.

and

For Chia-Yi Lee (Alice).

You kept me glued together through all of it.

I will forever be grateful for all

your kindness and encouragement.

FOREWARD

I was haunted by my own childhood trauma well past my thirties.  Bad memories played on repeat in my head, and as frustrated as I was, I still couldn’t change my family of origin’s dynamic. Around my abusive parent I froze. I fawned.  I was the queen of silent agreement while seething for days.  But all of that changed when I wrote my story down.  Suddenly, I didn’t have to carry my pain anymore—it lived between the covers of a book.  And I walked away from my father entirely.  By writing down his actions, I could see that I wasn’t being a drama queen/whiner/exaggerator (insert your family’s favorite term for minimizing your pain here).  I could see that I didn’t have to stay in the relationship any longer.  It was bad enough.

But for me, it was not just in writing that I found release, but in hearing from readers that I wasn’t crazy, that it really was that bad, and that I wasn’t the only one.  That it didn’t need to be worse to justify my trauma.  And it was in reading other people’s stories that this feeling was cemented—sometimes it is easier to see the trauma in others than it is in our own lives.  It is in reading that we find validation.  And in I Know Why She Stayed I had that experience, over and over.  I did not know the term, economic abuse but I have suffered from it.  It is that shared experience that gives us words and power, for if we can name it, we can mourn what we lost, allow ourselves to feel rage and finally release our pain and say, never again.

Lara Lillibridge, author of The Truth About Unringing Phones: Essays on Yearning and Girlish: Growing Up in a Lesbian Home.

MAP OF LOCATIONS

PART 1

SEEDS OF DOUBT

"March on. Do not tarry.

To go forward is to move toward perfection.

March on, and fear not the thorns,

or the sharp stones on life’s path."

~ Khalil Gibran

CHAPTER ONE

A Reluctant Farewell

August 30, 2010 Alexandria, Ontario, Canada

The red light flashed on the answering machine. I saw it blinking from the bathroom where I stood drying off from my shower. I wrapped a towel around my body and crossed through the door to the desk in the room. My hand hovered above the play button. Mentally, I listed the reasons I didn’t want to listen to the message. Most likely, my husband, Phillip, left a message to ask when I was leaving Alexandria. However, after twenty-four years of marriage, I knew that the questions he asked and what he really wanted to know were two different things. While the question might be, When are you leaving, he wanted to see if I’d finished packing. I wondered why he always seemed to think haranguing me would make me work faster. What it did, in reality, was piss me off. I stood there, debating whether to listen to the message at all.

I’d been alone for a few days after taking our twins, Jack and Lucy, to Vermont. My brother Jake and his wife Meredith were caring for them for the week while I packed to move back to the States. I thought maybe Jake had left the message, so I pushed the play button. I heard Phillip’s familiar voice, heavy with recrimination.

Well, I guess you’ve already left to go to Jenny’s. Funny how you always have time to spend with your friends. Don’t bother calling me back tonight. I’m sure you’ll be staying out late. Well, I have to get up early tomorrow because I work for a living. Call me tomorrow when you finish packing, so we....

I erased the rest of the message without listening to the end. It would only be another reminder of the countless times during our marriage when Phillip insisted my desire to attend any social function was selfish and that doing so made me a terrible wife and mother. Those hurtful words had prevented me from going to baby showers, birthday parties, and countless other events I had wanted to attend. This latest ploy didn’t work now because I’d learned it was another way he tried to manipulate me.

Screw him, I thought, and flipped the answering machine, the bird, as I walked into the room to get dressed.

I sat down and slumped across the mattress that served as my temporary bed. I berated myself for telling Phillip in an email earlier in the day that I planned to go out in the first place. I should have known how he’d react. I was thankful I didn’t tell him everything. Jenny arranged a farewell dinner on my behalf and had invited several mutual friends. She’d also suggested I bring my laundry and spend the night. I did that frequently when Jenny’s husband traveled.

I looked down at Chubby Checkers, our small white Bichon-Lhasa mix, lying on the edge of the mattress. He looked up, wagging his tail.

I’ll bet you’re looking forward to this evening as much as I am, Chub. I reached over to scratch his head, grateful for his company.

I wasn’t used to being alone anymore. I felt untethered without a business to run and my kids to look after. Both kept me grounded and focused on the present. Now, I had too much time to think while I dismantled our life in Alexandria. Questions about the past and the future rattled around in my head.

I wanted to get to Jenny’s before everyone else showed up to talk with her about the ongoing saga of my troubled marriage. Things I had been blind to for decades were coming into sharp focus. Recollections of seemingly benign events were called into question and took on new meaning. I wasn’t sure who Phillip was anymore. I was starting to think I never knew.

Reaching over, I picked up a small notebook on top of a cardboard box I used as a nightstand. I had spent the last few days packing and never called Jenny to tell her what I’d found under the desk. Earlier in the week, I’d received an email from Phillip asking me to help him recall all the dates of family birthdays and anniversaries. He couldn’t locate the notebook where he kept all this information. Then I remembered seeing something on the floor beneath a desk in the office. He must have dropped it there on his last visit, weeks ago.

I was delighted to find that not only did the notebook contain the dates of birthdays and anniversaries, but it also held all his usernames and passcodes. He had a horrible memory of such details. It wasn’t long before I logged into his email account and read them without an iota of guilt.

What Phillip had written to various friends and family members left me numb. His tone invoked sheer hostility whenever his correspondence mentioned me. He made claims about my actions or inactions that revealed a resentment built on complete fabrications. Of particular note was an email he sent to his sister, Rachel. Phillip claimed I had squandered all the money from the sale of our house in the States on a failed business and that I had refused to follow through in contacting an attorney about our residency status in Canada. I wanted to scream when I read that. How dare he!

None of his claims were true. I had countless communications, in writing, from the Ottawa attorney filing documents on our behalf. I had all our bank statements, including canceled checks to the attorney, that could show he was lying.

Reading this email allowed me to understand that his lies were another form of manipulation. By convincing his sister not to betray his confidence, he knew she would never discuss this with me. His lies were a way for him to exert power and control over us.

Phillip’s emails caused me to speculate, and I began to believe he planned to file for divorce once the kids and I moved back to the U.S. He wanted everyone to believe I was at fault for all the problems between us in recent years. The whole matter made me eager to discuss what he’d written in them with Jenny. I hoped to talk to her privately to get her input.

I finished dressing and considered what I should do next, since Jenny suggested I arrive around seven. With almost two hours to go, I considered confronting the piles of packed boxes cluttering the former tearoom, but found it too daunting. With little else to do, I went back upstairs and impatiently waited.

Earlier in the day, I emptied shelves and disassembled various elements of my business located on the main floor of the building. Tomorrow, when I traveled south, I would leave it all behind. Even though the upstairs room was hot and stuffy, I avoided that unpleasantness and stayed camped out in a room upstairs that once served as the office for my restaurant, The 2Beans Café and Tearoom.

Most people assumed 2Beans referred to coffee beans. But our twins were the real inspiration for the restaurant’s name. We called them the Beans after Phillip, and I saw their first ultrasound. They looked like two little kidney beans facing one another. It was a happy coincidence when it came time to name the restaurant nine years after they were born.

Phillip lost his job as a copywriter in February 2005 when his company in New Jersey merged with another ad agency. Almost every employee, including Phillip, found themselves laid off, which forced us to make some hard decisions.

A year went by and Phillip was still unemployed, so in October 2006, we sold the old Victorian home we had lovingly restored in Blairstown, New Jersey. We moved into a rented apartment close to where the kids went to school and began looking for a way to start fresh.

We’d owned a vacation property in Quebec years ago, and Phillip’s lifelong dream was to move to Canada permanently to reconnect with his French-Canadian heritage. He convinced me to purchase the property in Alexandria, Ontario, and we planned to open a family business. I thought reinventing our lives there would bring us closer together. Instead, the move fractured us in ways I never could have imagined.

We moved north at the end of June 2007. Four months after we relocated, Phillip took a job back in the States, leaving the kids and me behind. He claimed we needed the money. I vehemently disagreed because we still had plenty in the bank from selling our home in New Jersey. He expected me to raise our twins alone in a foreign country while I also operated the new business we planned to run together.

Phillip could only travel to Alexandria every few weeks. His visits and our conversations grew shorter and shorter as time and distance came between us.

Hey. How was lunch today? Phillip asked when he called each night.

We were pretty busy, I would reply. I’d give him a brief rundown of the day and then ask, How about you? Marco keeping you busy?

Yeah, I took work home. I have to work for a few more hours tonight. I was hoping I could come north this weekend, but it doesn’t look like I’ll have time. Traveling six hours each way makes little sense if I can’t spend time with you and the Beans. Next weekend, though.

The excuses for why he couldn’t come north were always the same, and I believed him when he said he needed to work, but it stung anyway. In the beginning, I tried to hide my frustration.

That sucks. We all miss you, I would tell him.

I know. I miss you, too. Are the kids there? I want to say hi, he’d reply.

I would put the phone on speaker so Phillip could talk to them both at the same time. I listened to him ask the same questions every night.

How was school? Do you have lots of homework? What did you guys do today? How’s Chubby? When the list of banal questions were all answered, and silence filled the air, he’d say goodnight and I love you. Can you put Mommy back on the phone?

I believed then that the tenderness that came through the phone lines spoke of his loneliness. Back then, it left my heart melting. I both longed for him and hated him for leaving us behind. When I woke in the morning without him, my cycle of anger would begin again as I went through the day without him by my side.

One year had turned into two, and Phillip always had a reason that it made little sense for him to move north or for us to return south.

How is Marco’s business doing? Are things picking up at all? I asked him often, reminding him of his promise.

He responded, Once the business is stable, you can all move back. Now is not the right time. We need to be sure my job is secure, and the business has been slow.

It never occurred to me to ask him why he was always required to work on the weekends if Marco’s business was so slow.

I grew immune to the loneliness in his voice and the hope that he’d visit. It hurt too profoundly to confront the reality that I had a husband I rarely saw and who our now eleven-year-old twins barely knew. He loomed over us like a distant rain cloud providing a break from the heat, but we knew the drenched earth would soon dry up and leave us all surveying the horizon, wondering when he would appear again.

I complained endlessly about the situation and expressed my anger with him to others. In reality, however, I missed him, and his choices hurt me. He was both the person who knew me best and a stranger. After decades of marriage, we had so much history together. Yet our lives had gone in such different directions.

I can’t recall the exact moment it happened, but I suddenly realized I no longer had time to think about Phillip throughout my busy day. I was exhausted from hours of being on my feet. By the time I got into bed each night, the pains that ran down my back erased thoughts of Phillip. We were no longer a couple, with our lives immeasurably intertwined. We were two people who were married to one another, leading separate lives.

At first, he didn’t need to be there physically to occupy a large part of my day. The rugs that lined the tearoom floor were the rugs that we had spent hours discussing before we purchased them for the formal parlor in our Victorian home. The antique lights that hung above the tables were the same ones we had selected to adorn our dining room years ago. Family photos and memorabilia brought to mind warm memories when I glimpsed them throughout my day. However, the miles between us couldn’t withstand the simple march of time. The warmth of him lying beside me was a thing of the past, and the everyday reminders of him faded during those years we were apart.

All the same, things that were once a part of Phillip and me became part of a different world, one Phillip didn’t inhabit. The twins and I had settled into a routine that didn’t include him. We adapted and thrived in the place we had thought of as home. We’d become members of a wonderful community while Phillip was just a visitor.

I checked the clock on the makeshift nightstand. It was approaching six o’clock, so I still had an hour before I could reasonably leave for Jenny’s house. I picked up Phillip’s notebook but avoided rereading his emails for a third and fourth time. Instead, I wandered downstairs to get a cold drink. Grabbing a can of club soda from the fridge, I glanced around the galley-style kitchen that had become my sanctuary. Away from Phillip’s constant scrutiny, it was here that I found myself reawakening as my passion for cooking slowly reemerged.

Beginning to cook again had also caused me to realize how much of myself I’d abdicated to Phillip. Rediscovering my culinary flair gave me a sense of joy smothered by the demands of churning out quick meals to feed my family. He always told me any meal that took more than a half-hour to make was a waste of time. Unchained from these demands, the luxury of watching the butter sizzle and brown in a pan to make a roux and other mundane acts of cooking became my elixir.

Standing in the tiny kitchen, my anger boiled over. I feared I would revert to the person I was when I had first arrived in Alexandria once I moved back to the U.S. The self-doubt and loathing faded only when Phillip wasn’t there to present his image of me. I realized I had absorbed all the negative messages Phillip had sent me during our marriage when he attacked my character. In his absence, I had regained my confidence.

While I sipped my drink, I imagined dozens of dubious reasons Phillip wanted us to return to the States since this arrangement had suited him just fine for years. Yet, there was a part of me that wanted to go back in time. I yearned to retreat to the days before I had realized that none of the reasons Phillip initially gave me for his living six hours away made sense. I longed to erase the knowledge that he most likely had been lying to me for years. Now that I suspected why he wanted to be so far away, I couldn’t shut out the thoughts that forced me to wonder why I hadn’t seen it all along.

In March of 2010, he’d taken a new job as a creative director for an ad firm in Albany, New York. I assumed he would happily continue our awkward arrangement of living separately. That wasn’t the case. His attitude shifted dramatically, and he began overtly referring to the move north as a mistake and suggesting that it had been my idea. He complained bitterly about missing the twins’ childhood and insinuated that because the café wasn’t making enough income to live on, it forced him to get a job back in the States to support our family. Then, he did something that thoroughly alarmed me. He opened a separate bank account that I had no access to. He claimed I’d over-drafted our joint statement. At first, I tried to reason with him. After all, he was the one who’d made the unrecorded transaction that hadn’t been posted to the account. That led to my assuming we had more funds available than we did. Regardless, he blamed me, and shortly after that, he closed our joint account because he said he needed to put his foot down because I was financially irresponsible.

In April, he told me he would no longer contribute to paying any of the bills in Canada. He said it was a waste of his money. The mortgage, taxes, and other building overhead, including all expenses related to his children, were now my sole responsibility. This made me furious, but it opened my eyes. Now I knew he was hiding something—I just didn’t know what.

Then Phillip demanded the Beans, and I move to the Albany area. He made no mention of wanting us to move back to the U.S. before he took the job. This made me think that he had been plotting something all along, knowing that the property in Alexandria’s overhead and expenses would drain any profit I made from operating the café. It would force me to close the business. Once I moved south, I would have no funds, giving him complete control over me.

At the end of June, I contacted an attorney in Alexandria who convinced me that if Phillip planned to file for divorce, the only way to prevent a messy court battle was to go back south. I was sure he wondered why I was suddenly so cooperative.

Other things struck me as significant signs of his intentions. One night, after he took the job in Albany, he called to tell me he’d found a place to live. He had moved into a single room in an expensive renovated mansion close to his job. This meant the Beans and I no longer had a physical address in the U.S. Not only did this present a problem regarding our immigration status, but Phillip didn’t seem the least bit concerned that we had no place to stay if we visited him in the area.

My room is small, but it’s close to work, so I don’t have as long a commute anymore. You would love this place. The owner converted a beautiful ballroom into a common area for the tenants. I’ve been coming down here at night to play my guitar. Man, the acoustics are great.

I expressed concern when he mentioned it cost twice the amount he’d spent on rent previously.

If it has no kitchen, what will you do about preparing meals? Aren’t you going to have to eat out all the time? I asked him.

There are plenty of places to eat, and it was the closest place to work that I could find on short notice, he insisted.

Okay. I get it. I’m just concerned because you told me your stomach acid is worse, not to mention the cost. It also worries me that the twins and I will have nowhere to stay when we come down there.

I’ll get up there again soon, he told me. Look, I have to get up early. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. He hung up abruptly without asking to speak to the kids.

By July, we began mainly communicating by email. Phillip’s calls became less frequent, and when he did call, I immediately put the kids on the phone or let it go to voicemail. His tone of voice had changed. He was cold and business-like.

When the time came to look for an apartment for the entire family, he suggested I look online at apartments forty-five minutes to an hour from Albany, claiming the rents would be much cheaper. He evaded my question when I asked why it was now okay to live that far away from work again.

I stood in the kitchen remembering these events. I had always taken Phillip at his word for much of my marriage. Even before we had children, we spent much time apart. But after they were born, he continued to spend much of his time away from me and the Beans. I always assumed our rental properties in another city demanded his attention. However, when I looked back at all the times he was away from us, I began questioning my thinking. My gut told me the miles between us were not the sole reason for his disengagement. I had begun to suspect there was another motive. I couldn’t help but recall another time, years before, when we had broken up. His words back then echoed in my mind.

I’ve met someone else, Kasey. I’m in love with her.

CHAPTER TWO

Distant Memories

I’d almost completely forgotten about Molly and the day Phillip announced he was ending our two-year relationship, since it happened so long ago. The memories came flooding back, returning me to that miserable day in the fall of 1985. I had walked through his apartment door in Arlington, Massachusetts, a town close to Boston. I had just flopped on his sofa when I noticed the look on his face.

I think somebody’s had a rough day. You should have called me, honey. I would have stopped and picked up a nice bottle of wine. All I can offer you now is a few Tic Tacs I found earlier at the bottom of my purse.

Phillip usually laughed at my attempts at humor, but my remarks did nothing to change the expression he wore.

Phillip, what’s wrong?

His silence filled the room.

I’ve met someone else, Kasey. I’m in love with her.

I couldn’t speak. I wiped my eyes, trying to find the reason for my blurred vision. The floors beneath me seemed to move, and I held onto the arm of a chair next to me before I slid into it, unable to stand. With my heart pounding, I gathered my thoughts and waited some time before I trusted myself enough to say something civil while I absorbed Phillip’s explosive news.

I see. Who is she?

The new receptionist at work. Her name is Molly.

Phillip had mentioned Molly’s name several times since she’d started work a month earlier. I never picked up on anything more than a casual remark about a new colleague. I waited to hear more, but he said nothing.

I’m assuming we’re over?

He nodded but refused to look at me.

I choked back tears, got up, and walked toward the door. What he said next was beyond comprehension.

Wait!

I turned back to face him.

I don’t want to lose you! he said. We can still be friends.

I didn’t wait to hear more and ran out of his apartment to my car. Driving away, I only made it as far as the parking lot of a nearby convenience store before I needed to pull over. Struggling to find a tissue to blow my nose, I came up empty after searching my pocketbook and the glove box. I saturated the sleeve of my blouse with tears and mucus, humiliated that I had no other remedy. I avoided looking at all the people who passed my car on their way into the store. I kept searching my purse as if I were looking for something deep within the various pockets while I struggled to compose myself. When I could finally drive back to my apartment, I rushed inside, crawled into bed, and locked the world out behind me. I pulled the covers up and lay there sobbing, assuming I’d never see Phillip again. Like so many things, I was wrong.

When Phillip and I met in 1983, he worked as a producer in Boston. I’d scheduled a business meeting for my company, RSVP Communications, to introduce the work of a consortium of producers and directors that my partner Gerry and I represented. I wanted to learn more about the company Phillip worked for so I could persuade them to use RSVP’s creative talent within their agency.

A handsome young man approached me when the elevator doors opened to the lobby of the ad agency. Phillip introduced himself and reached out to shake my hand. His engaging eyes and friendly demeanor left me taken aback.

During his presentation, he exuded confidence. I wanted to know more about him. I glanced around the room for a way to check my appearance, hoping my lipstick was the right shade and the bobby pins in my hair were holding it in place. I smoothed my dress and avoided looking at Phillip’s crooked smile too closely.

Weeks later, I contacted him about joining my company as one of our producer/directors. It was merely an excuse to contact him. Soon, we began working together to develop small film projects.

My friends kept asking me if I was interested in him romantically. I insisted I wasn’t. But something about him made me look forward to seeing him. Our projects soon became an excuse to be with one another. I enjoyed spending time with this talented and funny man.

What I appreciated most about Phillip initially was how different he acted from many of the men I’d worked with in the past. I always seemed to work alongside this fraternal pack of grown boys who barely recognized their female colleagues as co-workers. Many of the women I worked with got smaller projects and lower salaries. Phillip, however, treated me more seriously, both personally and professionally.

One of the reasons I started my own business was I got sick to death of being just as skilled as my male counterparts without getting the credit for my work. It seemed like I only got positive feedback when I wore something that showed off my figure. I’d hear the whispers and tried to laugh off the uncomfortable banter my male co-workers called jokes.

Hey, where’s your sense of humor? my male colleagues frequently asked.

As a single woman, I was often passed over for promotions in favor of male co-workers because they had families to support.

I started my own business to get away from a company where men had the right to say and do despicable things, and I was expected to go along.

By the time I met Phillip, I found it so refreshing to work with a guy who never displayed these horrible, misogynistic tendencies—at the time. He treated me like an equal back then, and I couldn’t help but admire him.

As our working relationship grew, we pooled our financial resources to option the T.V./film rights of a book by local writer Art Meyers called Ghosts in America and Where to Find Them. I acted as producer, while Phillip directed, and we co-wrote the pilot episode, with Art acting as the pilot’s narrator.

We had scheduled the film shoot for a weekend in early September of 1984. It was a cold and rainy day. We were shooting the film at two locations. First, we set up in a graveyard and, next, at an inn with a restroom haunted by the ghost of a woman.

Things went haywire all day. We ended our graveyard shoot early because of heavy rain. Then, our fully-charged batteries failed when we tried to use them to power the camera to shoot a scene in the attic of the inn. While shooting a scene in a meeting room, Phillip attempted to do a white balance on the video camera. He ended up recording a shadow between the camera and the wall only inches away. We were all spooked by the day’s strange events, and most of the footage we recorded was unusable.

The owner of the inn provided us with dinner at its in-house restaurant. Before our meals came, I hurried off to use the restroom, the one rumored to have ghostly sightings. Shortly after I used the toilet, something startled me so much that I screamed.

The camera guy knocked on the bathroom door.

Are you okay? We thought we heard a scream.

I’m good. There was a huge spider. It scared me. Nasty creature. The size of a quarter, I fibbed. Embarrassed, I came out of the restroom and sat down, convinced I had covered up the truth about what had occurred.

Phillip and I had driven to the shoot together, so he drove me back to my apartment after we wrapped up for the day. When we arrived, he parked in the driveway and turned to me with a knowing smile.

Okay, Kasey. What happened in there? he quizzed me.

I hesitated for a moment before telling him.

All right. Busted. If you tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you, got it? Well, I accidentally wrapped my underwear around the toilet seat. When I went to get up, the seat came up, too, and as I pulled up my undies, it crashed onto the enamel bowl. I thought it was a ghost.

He started to laugh so hard I laughed, too. At first, I thought he was making fun of me, but then he looked over and pulled me toward him.

I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, he said, kissing me.

We went upstairs to my apartment and started a new chapter of our relationship.

After we began officially