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Volume 6, Number 1 - Fall 2007
Embracing Paradox
reflections by Anndee Hochman
In “The Day It Happened” by Rosario Morales, a young woman finally summons the resolve to leave her abusive husband, Ramón. Neighbors—including the story’s 12-year-old narrator—watch from apartment windows and gather on the sidewalk as Josie confronts Ramón to say goodbye.
I discovered that “it” had happened to nearly every woman in our group at Interim House, a residential substance-abuse recovery program in Philadelphia. One by one, women told of husbands who beat them while pregnant, screamed if dinner was late, offered empty apologies, then hit them again.
They were unimpressed by Ramón’s tearful plea at the story’s end. “They always say that,” Amina sniffed.
“They say they’ll never do it again, then it happens all over,” agreed Mattie.
“Men have a need to be controlling. My dad was like that,” Pamela said.
And then Tamika, parked in her usual corner-of-the-couch spot, spoke up. “I was Ramón,” she said. The discussion fell silent. In her marriage, Tamika explained, she was the abuser. “My husband held out hope for me. I was angry. I guess he got used to it.”
Some People & Stories/Gente y Cuentos discussions are like soup: each new ingredient sharpens or sweetens or spices the flavor, until, together, we’ve created something rich and complex. But other times, one comment jabs like lightning; everyone shudders and is changed.
Tamika reminded us that people are complicated and unpredictable, that the labels “abuser” and “victim” don’t cover whole human beings, that the potential for violence exists in all of us. The women stopped trashing Ramón; instead, they talked about Josie’s ambivalence and the paradox they knew too well of love and power: How a weak person can try to find strength by bullying another; how you can love someone who hurts you; how you can be frightened, and still summon the courage to leave.