Secrets

They took her away when I was eleven. She was only thirty-six. The indictment against her husband read: “…willfully and with malice aforethought did kill and murder…by choking, and beating, and other means unknown.” My aunt was unrecognizable. Her face was a black and blue pulp. She had been kicked repeatedly in the groin, inner thighs and lower abdomen, with such force that her internal organs had been crushed against her own spine. She had been left in the floor to die painfully, slowly, and alone. The worst of it all was that she didn’t have to die.

My aunt was a beautiful, vivacious and feisty woman. She could make a preacher cuss and the Pope cry, but she always made us kids laugh. She was headstrong – even to the point of being stubborn, but that was her way of maintaining her independence. She didn’t hesitate to voice her opinion. I never viewed her as a weak person or someone easily manipulated or controlled. Forty years later, I still don’t. Maybe it was her defiance that provoked him that night. We’ll never know.

I saw her in your face today. It’s the same weary look that bleeds through a forced smile and idle chatter. He wasn’t a monster if that’s what you’re thinking. He loved her very much. They had a little girl…

Would you hear me if I cried from the highest mountaintop that I feared for you and your children? Would you admit that any of this has happened to you?

When we spoke today, for some inexplicable reason, I just wanted to reach out and hug you. You had no idea that I could see anything other than what you wanted me to see. I don’t even remember what we spoke about. It was insignificant – the trivial details of your day. You spoke nothing of your nights.

As I watched you go, I wondered what you were really thinking. You seemed relieved that I didn’t ask you about your life. You wouldn’t have told me the truth anyway. As you turned to go, you seemed to become ill at ease with me. Did you wonder if I knew? I could see that you were too ashamed to bring it up. It wasn’t the right time or place. It never is.

I just can’t put you out of my mind. I wanted to shake you, to tell you that you aren’t alone. But I knew that as soon as I was out of sight, you would be chastising yourself for revealing your plight to someone.

What do I do? Do I sit silently by, knowing without being told what you’re going through: the sleepless nights – the days filled with anticipation and dread, of wondering and waiting until he comes home. It’s the uneasy sickness in the pit of your stomach when nothing happens and you just wait, because you know it will… And a day, a week, a month goes by without something traumatic dominating your life – you begin to convince yourself that things are getting better. At least things are tolerable. How do I tell you that your sense of security is a false one?

What was it the last time? You cooked the eggs wrong? One of the kids spilled Kool-Aid on the new sofa? You talked to a neighbor’s husband and she wasn’t home? The dog made a mistake on the living room floor – the grass is green – the moon is full? Is it ever anything tangible? The children provoke him. Their normal everyday behavior is unacceptable to him. He expects them to be perfect. He expects you to be perfect. You fear for their lives when a spanking goes into a beating – when things go too far and you can’t protect them…

You are always certain to be there when he comes home. You gather the children together and scurry out of sight. He doesn’t want you to have friends – he says we’re a bad influence on you; that every time you get around us, you start getting ideas in your head. And he complains when you wear makeup – that your clothes are too youthful or revealing. You thought you looked terrific. It hurts, doesn’t it? You did it for him and he makes you feel cheap. He’s insanely jealous of perfectly innocent friendships with other men. You’re afraid even to be seen talking to another man.

There’s no end to the verbal assaults. You know the kind I mean – the kind that preys on your mind, wears down your spirit, makes you feel worthless… It leaves you feeling ugly inside and out. He wants you to believe that everything that goes wrong is your fault. He manages to take away every single thing that you ever felt about yourself that was good and decent.

When the fighting starts, the children get so quiet. You almost forget they’re there, until the middle of the night when the bad dreams come. They wet the bed sometimes. Sometimes, they destroy things purposely, right when you’re in the middle of it all, and from there, it escalates… They bear the brunt of his anger. Afterwards, the guilt you feel is indescribable when you realize that they were misbehaving to draw your attention from each other to them – and it worked.

It’s no wonder that they fight with other children. Did you ever notice how they seem to draw toys and other sentimental items and hold them close to them – like those things are the only solid representation of security to them? They withdraw into their own little world – to a safe place: a hiding place, a place they are afraid to leave. It’s a place where they can’t hear their mother’s crying, or the anger in their father’s voice, or the things that are breaking all around them. Broken toys, broken knickknacks, broken doors and dishes, broken hearts – broken lives…

They are sick all of the time. You worry about them. You’re up all night. You get so tired that you don’t even want to get up in the morning. Some days it’s all you can do just to get out of the bed. But you do it. And every act you walk yourself through during the day seems to have to be done to prevent a major argument when he comes home. You resent it.

Sometimes you think of poisoning him – or shooting him outright. Maybe you could run him down with the car. You’d have to go to prison, but you’re in a prison anyway, so that’s not much of a threat. At least in prison you would have a measure of security – peace of mind. At least in prison there would be small, measured amounts of freedom. You would know what was expected of you. There would be comfort in knowing that you aren’t going to be jerked out of bed in the middle of the night to clean up something that wasn’t done right, or be sexually assaulted during a sound sleep. You wouldn’t jump through your skin at the sound of footsteps, or a car’s engine running. Your children would be safe from him. All in all, prison begins to look pretty good…

How many times have you threatened to leave him? He always throws it in your face that you can’t go to your family. You can’t get a job. Who the hell would hire someone that’s been home raising kids for the last ten years, right? And of course, no one’s going to want you now. Look at you. Look how you’ve let yourself go. And the kids – what man in his right mind is going to take on a ready-made family? Anyway, he would never let you go. He’ll see you dead in hell first. You’ll never take his kids from him. He’ll kill them and leave you alive to see it…

Where do you go from that point? How do I tell you that you can get out and make you believe me? I know that it will end. One way or another it will have to. The question is, will you have any control over it? Will you decide your destiny? Or will you wait, hoping that things will change, surviving, existing from one day to another, until that fateful day when something triggers a rage so violent that you both are caught up in it? You think it can’t happen to you? It will start with a push, a shove… It will start slowly and build.

You have slipped into your life silently without ever realizing what was happening. It is so hard to see the danger when it is so cleverly disguised. It hasn’t hit home yet. You see it every day on television, but it doesn’t touch you. You have no way of knowing how your children will be affected by it – you can’t think that far ahead. You are too busy just trying to get through the day that you are in.

You know that I can’t tell you what to do. No one can. This is your life. No one has the right to stand on a soapbox and preach to you. No one has the right to judge you. Still – knowing what I know, how can I live with myself, if I stood silently by and something happened to you?

If you stay, and if you and your children survive – you will have managed to weather a war of attrition and the children will pay the ultimate price. What will happen to them when one day, something trivial triggers a rage within him – when he reaches a state of destructive violence so extreme that you finally recognize it for what it is? Perhaps you will have time or foresight to take things in your own hands before he has a chance to unleash it all. The consequences would be catastrophic for in one swift moment of terror, fear for your own life, and the lives of your children – indescribable horror crushes in, ending it all forever. Will the children witness it? Is this the legacy that you wish to leave them?

Even if the violence never leads that far, there will be a death. It will be the death of innocence, of hope, of trust, and of dreams…

How long has it been since you went to bed without dreading what the next morning would bring? How long since you did something that you really wanted to do, without being chastised for it? How long since you were treated like an adult in the presence of others? When was the last time that you felt really good, both physically and emotionally?

Can you remember what it is like to be free of the tension and stress that you are constantly under now? Feel it, embrace it. Bring it alive in your consciousness until it is fresh in your mind. Feel the peace of just looking into the sky without dread. Think of the beautiful things that you have created in your children, and what you would like for them. Dare to dream of a time when you will look back and wonder how you ever lived the way that you do now. Push yourself forward to a place that you have forgotten – the future. Then reach out for everything that is possible. Breath again. Dream again. Feel at peace again. Let me see the lines of worry smooth with each day of freedom you have claimed. Let me hear laughter in your voice.

You have an inner strength that you have yet to fully tap into. You have had to be strong to survive as long as you have. You have relied on your sense of humor and clung to life by your sheer wits. You have been determined to hold on for the love of your children. Use that strength. Get mad. Do whatever it takes to motivate you to break the vicious cycle of broken lives.

I miss my aunt to this day. I miss not having had her all these years: not hearing her laughter, or seeing her grow old. We all lost something the day that she died – something irretrievable. She had her whole life ahead of her forty years ago. Now she is just a memory – a sad memory of a beautiful, young woman who died too young, so senselessly, and alone…

WMD



(I have written a novel inspired by my aunt's story. You can read the installments on this website pre-publication for a limited time. Read about it below.)WMD





OF HUMAN ENTANGLEMENTS is the gripping story of a young mother who finds herself thrust into a battle for survival when her only sibling is viscously murdered, and she learns that it is she alone who must bring her sister’s killer to justice. When the laws of man obscure justice, a higher court overturns the decision.

Set deep in the South in the heart of Cherokee country, the Blue Ridge Mountains slowly yield the secrets of this intriguingly plotted true-life story filled with twists and turns that keep the reader guessing – and tales of the supernatural that transcend human comprehension. Authentic regional dialect and descriptive, soulful narrative drive the characters off the page and into the reader’s psyche where they linger long after the book has been put down.


Ms. Dillard pulls no punches in this exacting tale of human entanglements that brings one family to the brink of destruction. Sometimes witty, sometimes graphic, sometimes heartbreaking, she takes the reader on a journey and brings them to a new level of understanding of humanity, while presenting insight on some of life’s most compelling issues. This book is a soulful, cathartic read – a story that comes full circle.