This document is an excerpt from a story about Maria, a woman living in an abusive relationship with her husband Jose. The narrator and her friend Carol meet Maria at a physical therapy appointment and learn about the control and abuse Maria endures from Jose. Maria describes how the abuse led to her being hospitalized and losing memory of her children. Though Maria attends some women's support meetings, she later defends Jose in court and disappears back into the abusive relationship. The narrator remains concerned for Maria and prays for her protection.

1. Maria by Rhea Harmsen
Copyright 2011
Cover art by Lua Harmsen
Cover design by Rhea Harmsen
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2. I never think of her without whispering a silent prayer.
The first time I met Maria she was coming out of a physical
therapy office, she didn’t acknowledge me. Of course, she didn’t know
me. We had been sitting in the waiting room, Carol and I, trying to keep
her two kids busy, which wasn’t easy. Well, I should say, with mixed
results. The four year old girl was docile and shy, and so eager to please
that by simply pulling a magazine out of the rack and showing her the
pictures I could keep her seated. I felt uneasy, though, as if I were in
breach of some child protection law, for encouraging her to be obedient to
me, a stranger. But Carol was busy trying to keep little Juan from running
out of the waiting room and into the street.
He had been good for a long time, absorbed by his hand-size
dinosaur and miniature Buzz Light Year, pitting them one against the
other and making the accompanying battle sounds. During that time Carol
had talked to the little girl in such terms of affection that she had slowly
kindled a response.
Carol spoke in hushed tones but her voice was the kind that
reverberated and filled the small room. The eyes of the other waiting
patients kept touching on us and then flitting away. I could sense their
listening, their questions. Why were these American women messing with
the two Puerto Rican kids while their mother was in the doctor’s office?
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3. After an interminable wait Maria came out. And though I had tried
to picture her, nothing could have prepared me for how wide off the mark
I was. Her hair was honey colored, and cut very short. Her makeup was
full, but then that wasn’t unusual. I had noticed since arriving in Puerto
Rico that women invariably wore full makeup. But most striking was her
clothing, I guess. The kind of mini skirt you see on women on T.V. Only
the color was subdued, a kind of gray. But the style was short--top of the
thigh short. And at the end of a vast expanse of legs were high-heeled
black sandals. Altogether, she was a gorgeous creature. Covering one big
toe was a gauze bandage, and I surmised this to be the cause for the
physical therapy. I found out later she had had surgery that very morning,
for an ingrown toenail.
“Maria!” Carol exhaled, getting up from her seat, as swiftly as a
lady of her years could manage. Throwing her arms about her she
whispered, “My dear, dear Maria.”
She held her very tightly for what I felt was an eternity, given the
covert watching eyes, until I noticed that Maria was returning the hug.
A hushed conversation ensued, in Carol’s staccato Spanish. “?Mas
cómo has estado?” with acute emphasis on the “cómo.” That emphasis on
“how” she had been, implied that it had been a very long time. All of
Carol’s longing to know was carried in that inquiry. I didn’t really
question at the time why there were so few answers to Carol’s questions.
“Necesita ayuda?” Carol whispered loudly. “Estamos aquí para
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4. servirle.” And then Carol realized that she was offering a ride in my car
and belatedly introduced us, stressing that I too was part of Maria’s
“family.”
At this point I expected a connection.
Maria gave me a kiss on the cheek. But there was no connection. I
remember thinking she was a long way off somewhere; that she wasn’t
exactly present.
As we stepped out into the street Carol asked if she was tired, or
would she and the kids like to come back to the house for a little while.
She accepted.
“Estoy seca, seca!” she exclaimed, passionately. As we walked
around the block, stepping over the uneven, sometimes absent pavement,
she went on about how she hadn’t had a drink of water for hours. She was
dry, very dry! It was a sweltering day, one in a long string. No point in
even trying to un-stick my sweaty clothes from my body.
I had parked the van half way on top of the sidewalk. There was
barely enough room for passing cars. The narrow streets of the Pueblo
were completely congested with three o’clock traffic, all the kids being let
out of school at the same time. I was freaking at a traffic jam that seemed
impenetrable. I vainly wished my van had air conditioning.
When we got to Carol’s she gave Maria some juice. I don’t
remember if the kids got any. I got myself a glass of water. Maria was
loudly protesting against her kids running into her foot. Although I was
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5. still struggling with my command of Spanish I understood that the pain
could be excruciating. I saw her cringe and hide her bandaged toe behind
her leg.
When we sat in the living room Carol’s painstaking Spanish began
again. “I heard that you were in the hospital, that you had some kind of
paralysis. That you had un derrame nervioso. ¿Qué pasó?” Without
waiting for a reply she went on, “I didn’t have your phone number, and I
couldn’t climb the stairs of your building. Finally, when she moved into
town,” she motioned in my direction, “I asked if she would come with me
to visit you. We stood in the plaza in front of your building and yelled out
your name. Your neighbor came out on the balcony and said you had
gone to physical therapy and so we came to find you!”
At the end of that exhalation Carol sat back and positioned herself
to listen. It was a silent, selfless listening. Maria began an account of why
she had been out of touch for more than a year. It was conversational, but
disorganized. But it kept building. At the end of an hour I had a mental
picture. And it was more than my mind or heart could hold.
She said she couldn’t come to the meetings because of her
husband. He didn’t like her going out. He didn’t want her to see other
people. He drove her everywhere she had to go. Even to take Juan to
school. He got mad if she walked down the block to drop the child off. He
said she was trying to meet other men. So she had to stay in the apartment
all the time. Or he took her to work with him. And when she was in the
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6. apartment, she had to be with him, in the room. He didn’t like her giving
too much attention to their kids. That made him jealous.
He didn’t like the kids to leave anything out so she kept everything
perfect. Living like that made her tense all the time. She didn’t disobey
him in anything. She had to take her shower when he said so. She couldn’t
buy the kids any thing they asked for. It hurt not to be able to buy them
even a little toy.
Her health was messed up because of Jose’s beatings; it had made
her paralyzed on one side. I was fuzzy on the details of this, because there
wasn’t any visible evidence of paralysis. She said that one time when he
was beating her, her eight year old son, the one that wasn’t living with her
right now, had had a trembling fit and fallen on the ground. That was the
only time she talked back to him, saying that if her son died she would kill
him.
The strain of living like that had gotten to her, she’d had a
breakdown. They put her in the hospital. He came after her, said she was
trying to meet other men. He started punching her.
“In the hospital he hit you?”
“Sí, sí. Me bofeteaba, me bofeteaba.” She kept repeating the word,
making the punching motions. The two kids were crouched near her feet.
Carol had found them some crayons. Maria kept her foot well hidden. The
little girl kept coming near, trying to sit on her lap. The boy hovered.
It was as if they were tied to her by an invisible rubber band. I felt
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7. the children’s alertness. They were at times silent like phantoms, at other
times they tried to get her attention, speaking over her voice and pulling
on her arm.
Maria was undeterred in her story telling. Her momentum kept
building.
They had put him in jail, she said.
“¿De veras? ¿Lo pusieran en la cárcel?” Carol enquired, her mouth
open. It was obvious she was struggling to keep up with the responses
demanded of the moment. I was more than dumbfounded. I tasted salt in
my mouth.
“Me amenazó.” He threatened to kill her. The doctors and nurses
had had to pull him off of her.
In the hospital she had lost her mind completely. She couldn’t
remember her children. She didn’t know them. She asked if there was
anyone she should know, and they told her. But she couldn’t remember
what they were like, their personalities.
She didn’t want to remember anything, do anything. She had no
will to live. The doctor told her that there was too much pain and that is
why she couldn’t remember. But only if she faced the pain would she get
better.
She lay for days like that and something in her told her she had to
fight for those children. So she tried to face the pain. She screamed and
screamed, trying to bear it. And slowly their little faces had come back to
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8. her.
How long had she been out of the hospital?
“El Viernes pasado.” Last Friday. It had been one week since
she’d come home. At night she just put the children on the mattress she
had on the floor and they all slept together. She was learning how to
breathe without listening for the door to be kicked in.
One part of her narrative was difficult for me to follow; I kept
hearing her use the verb me quitó. He took away. She repeated it over and
over, adding on to the list. He took away my belief in love, my self-worth,
my self-respect, my hope. He took away my sanity. He took away my
children. She had reached a point where she could no longer hold back. It
was a torrent. The desire to empty out her heart seemed to have taken
over.
I don’t remember whether it was Carol or I who asked the
question, the one that was hanging in the air.
“Y José, cuanto tiempo va estar en la cárcel?” How long would he
be behind bars? How long could she breathe?
She said she had to go to court on the 22nd. That she would find
out then.
“Necesita apoyo?” Carol asked. Did she want someone to go with
her?
Maria seemed a little taken aback. Then she explained that they
made her the key witness, it all depended on her. It would get ugly. “Va
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9. ser muy sucio.”
“Ahhh...” Carol smiled her angelic smile, “He visto sucio.” She
was not so innocent; she had seen plenty of dirt in her life.
We’ve been trying to get a hold of Maria for over a month. It
seems her cell phone isn’t working any more. She must have used up all
the minutes on her card. No one answers when I stand in front of the pink
apartment building and yell my head off, very self-conscious of the stares
I elicit.
Before we lost touch she came to a few meetings. One was a
domestic violence meeting. I wrote inviting her to others. But she’s
vanished off the face of the pueblo, it seems.
Last night at the women’s meeting someone told Carol. They saw
Maria in court on the 22nd. She spoke in José’s defense.
He was let out of jail. She’s back with him.
And she’s disappeared.
I never think of her without asking, “Why?” What threats, what
lies? How did he get to her? Why did the system leave her so unprotected?
I always feel guilty. Something slipped through my fingers and I
can’t get it back. When I go to the pueblo I keep searching the faces of
women on the streets, looking for Maria.
I never think of her without praying God protects her.
And those children.
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