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I glanced at the time on my monitor screen, and I only had an hour left in my day before I’d have to kiss Killian goodbye for a few days, and I did my best not to let it depress me.
Answering my next call, I said, “This is Posie.”
“Hi…hi, Posie,” the caller greeted.
“Hi,” I greeted back, waiting for her to tell me her name. Some callers like to stay anonymous because they felt more protected that way.
“I…I’m not sure why I’m…I’m calling,” she stammered quietly.
“Believe it or not, sometimes you don’t know the answer to that until after you’ve gotten off the phone with us,” I replied. “Unscripted conversations are often paths to places that you hadn’t ever considered going before. They might not start out with a purpose, but they can end up being full of purpose once it’s all said and done.”
“Well…I…God, it’s not even me that’s being abused and I’m calling like I’m the victim,” she rushed out, and my heart hurt for her. Nothing was rougher than not being able to help someone that you loved. “It’s my best friend, Mae. She’s married to a real piece of shit, and she just won’t…for whatever reason, she won’t leave him, and…and…and there are times when I think that I might just kill him because I’m so mad at her for not leaving him.”
“That’s understandable,” I told her. “Nothing is worse than the feeling of not being able to protect, defend, or avenge the people closest to you.”
“I just…I don’t know how to be the friend that she needs me to be,” the caller went on. “I’m not…I’m not like her. I’m not…God, this is going to sound awful, but…I’m not weak. I don’t understand letting some guy punch on me, then forgiving him because…because of some stupid flowers? Professions of love?” Her anger was loud and clear over the phone. “I…she tries to talk to me, but I…I have no idea what she’s saying to me. I hear her words, but they don’t make any sense. I mean, how can you love a guy that abuses you?”
“Unfortunately, that question has a million different answers,” I replied. “Since no two women are the same, there isn’t a blanket answer to that question.”
“I’m just scared that I’m going to push her away because I don’t understand her decisions,” she explained. “I feel like…like she might start to feel ashamed around me or…or I don’t know.”
Rambling wasn’t anything new. Lots of callers really didn’t know why they were calling. Lots of callers were confused, hoping for concrete answers when there really weren’t any.
“May I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Are you finding yourself feeling guilty because you’ve begun to lose compassion for her situation, and that’s why you’re questioning your friendship? Maybe that’s why you called us?”
Silence.
“It’s okay,” I coaxed. “I know that it’s hard to say the words because then you’ll have to admit something about yourself that you might not be ready to admit, but hard honesty doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person.” That was something that I had learned being friends with Lennon. She wasn’t a bad person, despite her sharp edges, but some people didn’t see her that way.
“It’s not like she complains or anything like that,” the caller said. “She’s not one of those victims that whines about her circumstances all the time. It’s just…I don’t know how much longer I can go to her birthday parties, or barbecues, or holiday events without causing an epic scene or just flat out beating the man to death.”
I didn’t take her words seriously, though they’d been said with passion. Thoughts of violence were the norm when dealing with these calls. Now, if the caller kept their focus on their violent fantasies, that’s when I would transfer them over to someone more qualified to talk to.
“And then what?” she continued. “He’ll force me out of her life, or I’ll have to bow out, but the result is the same. I’m going to lose my friend because…I mean, is it possible to love someone so much that you’d let them do anything to you?”
I wanted to tell her that the answer was no, but I knew that wasn’t true. Every Reed, Marlow, McIntire, and McCellan marriage was forged out of some seriously unhealthy stone, so I knew what it was like to love someone so much that you’d take them any way that you could get them. It was a scary thing, really.
“It is,” I answered honestly. “Unfortunately, it is.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered, her voice getting choked up. “I don’t want to feel this…this apathetic to domestic abuse, but…I feel like that’s what’s happening. I don’t feel her bruises like a punch in my chest anymore. I feel annoyed with them, and I feel like shit for feeling that way.”
“Have you thought about telling her all this?” I asked.
“I’ve said it all,” she replied. “We’ve had every conversation under the sun about the way he treats her, and it always comes back to how much she loves him. She claims that the bad times are worth the good times because the good times are always so incredible.”
That made me think of my mother. It made me think of how she had endured what my father had done to her because money and status had been her drugs. She had let the man abuse her horrifically and damage me psychologically, but it’d all been worth it as long as she’d had the latest handbag or pair of shoes. She’d been at her happiest whenever she was spending his money, so she’d seen everything else as a small price to pay for that joy. This caller’s friend was doing the same thing, only she was dealing in feelings and not cash.
“When people call here, it very rarely works out that we have a concrete answer for them,” I told her honestly. “No matter what I suggest, you’re the one that has to live with the decision to end your friendship with Mae or not. You’re the one that has to wrestle with the love and guilt that you feel for her and her situation. It sounds like the issue here is that you feel like you might be turning into a person that you don’t want to become by becoming indifferent to something so damaging and serious. If that’s the case, who are you more interested in saving, you or Mae?”
“Mae,” she answered automatically, and that made me smile.
“Well, there’s a reason that Mae hasn’t cut you out of her life yet, even though you’re a threat to the life that she claims she wants,” I pointed out. “She’s not completely lost to her husband if she keeps reaching out to the one person who hates him the most in the world. I know that it feels like she might be picking his side all the time, but is she really?”
“I never thought of it that way,” she muttered. “I just…I just figured…maybe I need to look a little bit closer to what she does, rather than what she says.”
