In Fate's Hands

As Mrs. Rodriguez’s eyes moved back and forth across the page, she dropped the jeans she was holding on her arm and brought her free hand to her lips as her eyes began to water and she slid down to the floor. She didn’t want to believe it, but she knew in her heart that every word in that letter was true. Suddenly, everything made sense; now she knew why Elizabeth never wore nice clothes, could not apply to college, and did not have any friends. While she was alone with him, she was never allowed to have any freedom.

What have I done? Mrs. Rodriguez thought through her tears. My daughter has been suffering this whole time and I was too blind to even notice it. What kind of mother puts her job before her own child? All this time she needed me and I was never there for her. I was never there… She buried her face in her hands and cried.

It might have been this way in the past, but it sure as hell isn’t going to be like this in the future, she thought after a few minutes. She wiped the tears from her eyes and made her way upstairs, the letter still in her hand, and knocked on Elizabeth’s bedroom door. When she came in, Elizabeth was lying on her stomach on her bed doing some of her homework. When Elizabeth turned around and saw the look on her mother’s face, she immediately sat up.

“Mom, what’s wrong? Are you ok?”

“For these past few years, I haven’t been a very good mother to you and I’m just coming to realize that, but I want you to know everything is going to change,” Mrs. Rodriguez said as she walked over to a chair near the bed and sat down.

“What do you mean?”

“I found your letter.”

“What letter?”

“Don’t play dumb. You know exactly what letter I’m talking about.”

“H-how did you find it?”

“It was in your jeans pocket.”

“I didn’t mean any of the things I said in that letter. It was all lies. You were never supposed to read it.”

“The only lie I heard was the one you just told me. I want to know the truth, Elizabeth. I’m not going to let this happen to you anymore. Now, please tell me exactly who Anthony is and what he does to you.”

“I’m so sorry, Mom. I wish I didn’t have to say these things to you, but now that you found out, you mind as well know the whole truth. Usually, if he’s not home drinking, he’s out at some bar getting drunk. I prefer it when he’s out because then he can’t hurt me. When he comes home drunk, he hits me even if I didn’t do anything. If I do or say one thing to make him mad, that’s it.” Tears began to roll down her cheeks as she went on. “”Even though he’s been doing this for the past two years, I can never seem to get used to it. The drunker he is, the worse the beating is and, most of the time, I get really scared. He’s too strong for me to try to fight him off.”

“Show me,” Mrs. Rodriguez whispered.

“What?”

“Show me your bruises.”

“Mom, no…”

“I need to see them.”

Slowly, Elizabeth lifted up her sleeves and showed her mother the black and blue marks all over her arms. Then, she lifted up her shirt to show her mother the bruises on her hips, stomach, and ribs from all the times he kicked her in the stomach. That was all Mrs. Rodriguez could take. She started screaming and crying hysterically.

“Oh, E-Elizabeth, I’m so s-sorry! I’m so sorry!” she wailed.

“It’s not your fault, Mom. There’s no way you could’ve known.”

“But, it is my fault. I should have noticed that something weird was going on.”

“No it’s not! You never made him hit me, I did! I was the one who was always there when he was mad. I never tried to run away or defend myself. It’s my fault because I let him do it.”

“Honey, none of this has ever been your fault. He scared you into not doing anything. I should have known what he was like before I married him and then left him alone with you. I never should have stayed away for so long.”

“Why did you? We both know that your job doesn’t take that long each month. You may own a real estate company, but we both know you can have someone else sell the houses for you or you can just stay local. Why don’t you want to be home?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“After your father died, it was so hard for the both of us. I never thought that I would find somebody again, but when Anthony came along, I thought I did. We got married and we were happy for the first few months, but then he got laid off his job, so he got drunk one night. He came home late and he reeked of alcohol, so I asked him what he had been doing. He got angry and he hit me. I got so angry at him that I left the house and spent the night in a hotel room. The next morning, he found out where I was staying, so he showed up outside my room with a dozen roses in his hand and apologized. He promised me that he would never hit me again, so I decided to forgive him. From then on, I was still afraid he would hit me, so I tried to spend as little time with him as possible. Luckily, you were away for the weekend visiting your cousins, so you didn’t have to see or hear any of it.”

“So you knew what he was like all this time and you just left me to deal with him?” Elizabeth asked incredulously.

“I was so naïve that I thought that maybe he would be better with you because you were only a kid and you needed a father. As it turns out, that was the dumbest decision I have ever made and now I’m going to have to live with the fact that I left you right in the palm of his hands.”

“How could you do that to me, Mom, when you knew what he was capable of? You abandoned me.”

Those words cut Mrs. Rodriguez’s heart right in half because she knew they were true and there was nothing she could do to change what she had done.

“I’m so sorry, Elizabeth. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

“And you think that’s just going to make everything ok?”

“No, but it’s a start. I swear to you that I’m going to do better by you from now one. I won’t leave you again and I won’t let him lay a hand on you ever again. Come on; we’re going to report him to the police.”

“We can’t do that! He’ll come after us.”

“He can’t come after us if he’s in jail, but if he does come after us, so help me God, I will kill him myself. Now let’s go before he gets home.”

Elizabeth nodded hesitantly. “Ok.”

Elizabeth grabbed her cell phone and waited while Mrs. Rodriguez went to grab her purse and then they walked down to the car together and got in. The ride to the police station was in complete silence. Elizabeth couldn’t even look at her mother, and, even if she could, she wouldn’t know what to say. On the other hand, Mrs. Rodriguez was too ashamed to speak. Now she could only hope that things would get better for her daughter, even if it meant that Elizabeth could never forgive her.

10 minutes later, they arrived at the police station and walked up to the officer behind the desk.

“Is there something I can help you with, ma’am?” the officer asked.

“Yes, we would like to report a crime,” Mrs. Rodriguez stated.

“Ok. An officer is going to have to get your statement and fill out a report. What is your name, ma’am?”

“I’m Susan Rodriguez and this is my daughter, Elizabeth Bancroft.”

“Ok, please sit down and wait over there while I see if an officer is free and get the paperwork ready.”

“Thank you.” They walked over and sat in black plastic chairs and waited for about five minutes until an officer came out.

“Are you two Susan and Elizabeth?” the officer asked as he came over to them. They both nodded. “I’m Officer Kyle Lowenstern and I will be taking care of your case.” He held out his hand and both girls shook it. Then, he led them to a room that said “Interrogation Room 1” on the door and they each took a seat around the table.

“Now what is the crime you want to report?”

“We would like to bring assault and abuse charges against my husband, Anthony Rodriguez. He hit me a few years ago and I never brought charges against him, but he’s been attacking my daughter up until as recently as last week. It’s time for us to put a stop to this.”

“Were there ever any witnesses to these crimes?”

“I don’t believe so,” Susan replied.

‘Yes there was,” Elizabeth said softly. “My friend Jesse came to my house to see me one day. He asked Anthony if I was home, but Anthony lied and said I wasn’t and shut the door in his face. He said that he heard a lot of screaming before he left”

“I’m going to need a statement from this kid, so do you think you could ask him to come over here?”

Elizabeth nodded and said, “Excuse me while I go call him.” She stepped outside the room and called him. He answered after the fourth ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jesse, it’s Elizabeth.”

“Are you ok? You sound really upset.”

“Lets just say that I found out a lot today that I never would have thought possible. I’ll tell you more about it later, but, right now, I’m going to need you to do me a favor.”

“Yeah, sure. Anything.”

“I need you to come to the police station. My mom found out about Anthony and now we are reporting him to the police. The officer needs your statement, since you were technically a witness.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Ok, thanks. See you soon.”

“Bye.”

She hung up the phone and went back into the room. She stayed completely silent, listening as her mother answered all of Officer Lowenstern’s questions. 10 minutes later, she got a text from Jesse that said he was there, so she went out to the parking lot to meet him.

“Hey,” he said as he walked up and gave her a comforting hug. “This must be really hard for you.”

“You have no idea,” Elizabeth replied as they walked into the station. “I don’t have time to explain it now, but it turns out that my mom has been hiding things from me, things I’m not sure I’ll be able to forgive her for.”

“Wow, I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. Now the most important thing is putting Anthony behind bars. We can worry about the rest of it later.” Jesse held the door for her as she came back into the interrogation room. Officer Lowenstern introduced himself to Jesse and they shook hands.

“Jesse, please tell me everything you know about this case,” Officer Lowenstern said as soon as everybody sat down.

Jesse’s mind went back to that day when he went to Elizabeth’s house. “I remember hearing a lot of commotion from inside the house as I stood outside the door; a man’s voice was shouting and someone was crying. I tried to look inside, but I couldn’t’ see anything through the curtains, so I knocked on the door and the man answered. I asked him if Elizabeth was home and he said no and that he was having a fight with his wife, but I had a feeling that he was lying. It seemed like I was only making him more angry by being there, so I left.”

“I wasn’t home at that time. I was in California trying to sell a house,” piped up Susan.

“The next day, Elizabeth didn’t show up at school,” continued Jesse. “For some reason, I had this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was wrong, so I went over her house to check up on her after school, but no one was home. I went with my gut instinct and called the hospital nearest her house. As it turns out, I was right; she was a patient there. Elizabeth’s friend Jayden and I went to see her and we got her to tell us about what Anthony had been doing to her. I knew that she wasn’t lying from the look on her face when she told us. That kind of look is something that cannot be faked.”

As he spoke, Officer Lowenstern furiously wrote down everything he was saying.

“While I was in the hospital, I also wrote a letter to my mom that I had absolutely no intention of her reading, but she found it anyway. The letter explains exactly what he did to me,” added Elizabeth.
“Do you have this letter with you?”

Susan pulled the letter out of her purse and handed it to Officer Lowenstern. He read the letter, jotted down some details, and inserted the letter into the file for evidence.

“Do you have any bruises on your body from where he hit you?” When he saw Elizabeth nod, he asked, “Would you mind letting me take pictures of your bruises for evidence?”

A scared look came over Elizabeth’s face and she hesitated. “Oh, I don’t know…”

“Elizabeth, I know it’s hard and it’s invasive, but Officer Lowenstern needs these pictures so that he can gather evidence to put Anthony in jail. Letting him take the pictures will be worth it in the end.”

Elizabeth nodded and said, “Ok I’ll do it,” so Officer Lowenstern left the room to get a camera.

When the officer came back, he set up the camera and waited for her. She rolled up her pants and he took pictures of some of the bruises on her legs. Then, she pulled up her sleeves and showed him her bruised arms. Next, she pulled up her shirt to reveal her black and blue stomach. Finally, she turned around and lifted up her hair to reveal a big bruise on the back of her neck where he had thrown her against the wall. When she turned back around, she saw looks of pure horror on each and every one of their faces.

“Thank you, Elizabeth,” Officer Lowenstern said as he regained his composure. “We’ll get these pictures printed and put them in with the evidence. I’m going to put an APB out for his arrest right away. I want you to know that I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure we catch this bastard and he never lays a hand on you again.”

“Thank you.”

“Please let us know when you arrest him so that we know when it’s safe to go back to our house,” requested Susan. She wrote down her cell phone number and gave it to Officer Lowenstern.

“I’ll do that.”

The officer said that he didn’t really need them anymore, so they were free to go. Susan walked out to the car ahead, leaving Elizabeth and Jesse lagging behind.

“Thanks for coming and helping me out,” Elizabeth said.

“No problem,” said Jesse. “I’m really glad that, once they arrest this guy, I won’t have to worry about you getting hurt or killed anymore.”

“Me too.”

“Where are you guys going now that you can’t go back to your house?”

“I don’t know. We’ll probably go get something to eat and wait for the call. I really don’t want to be with my mom right now though. Will you come with us? I don’t know if I can stand being alone with her.”

“If you really need me to, then sure.”

“Great.” Elizabeth called to her mother, “Mom, Jesse is coming with us to dinner and I’m going to ride with him. You can follow us to the restaurant.” She got in the car with Jesse and they drove out of the parking lot.

“So have you given any more thought to what I said before?” he asked as they were on their way to the restaurant.

“I have.”

“And?”

“I definitely want to become more than friends with you, but I want to wait until things in my life settle down a little bit. I feel like right now my life is this crazy mess that needs to be cleaned up before things get out of control. I need time to get used to being normal again. I definitely see a future for us; I’m just not quite ready for it to begin yet. I guess what I’m saying is that I would like for us to stay friends right now and then maybe start dating in like a month or two. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“Definitely. I understand.”

“Thank you for being so nice about this whole thing. I don’t think I’ll be able to wear regular clothes again for a while, but I’m just so glad it’s finally over. Anyway, the thing I couldn’t tell you before was that I just found out today that he hit my mom too, but she still left me with him when she knew exactly what he was capable of.”

“Wow…”

“Yeah. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to forgive her. I feel so abandoned. I just, I don’t really know what to do.”

“You should try to see if you can work things out with her. You need to learn to trust her and make sure that she won’t ever leave you again. If she does leave you, you’ll be 18 soon, so you wouldn’t need her to take care of you anymore.”

“That’s a good way to look at it. Thanks, Jess.”

“What are friends for?”

They finally arrived at the restaurant, so they parked the car and went inside.