A Beautiful Day Like This

It was on beautiful day like this
A beautiful autumn day
So sunny and crisp
The kind of day you wish
Would never go away
It was on a beautiful day like this
Perfect in every way
That the court
Took my kids away.

As I stood outside the courtroom door
Knowing hope was lost forevermore
I heard what my ex would scream at me
Whenever I told him I’d flee
If he didn’t stop trampling on my dignity.

“If you run away
I’ll make you pay
In so many ways
You’ll wish you had stayed.

“Hear my warning once more
Before you sneak out the door --
If you run away
I’ll make you pay.”

And so he did.

It was on a beautiful day in October
That I thought the custody battle would be over
And finally I’d find some rest
From three years of divorce lawyers, financial lawyers, children’s lawyers, psychologists, Psychiatrists, social workers, child advocates, home investigators
Judges who yawned
And judges who cursed
Who thought that I was a jerk
But that my ex was so swell
Why dwell on who should get custody?

As far as they could see
He was a better parent than me.
So if I wouldn’t agree to joint custody
They’d give the children to him
And I’d be able to see them
Once a month or at his whim.

Was this how my ex had planned for me to pay?

I’ll never know.
But I’m not sorry I left.
For no longer could I stand
Him having the upper hand
And always telling me
What to do and say
As he squirreled away
Every nickel and dime
He could find.

And tried in every way
To take away
The children from me
By always saying there was something more
Important I had to do
Than be with them.

Like pick up a tub of popcorn he had dumped on the floor
One kernel at a time
Or clean broken bits of dirty mushrooms one by one.
No time with the kids until this chore was done!

“I’m not listening to you,” I’d proclaim.

“Woman, I’m not telling you what to do.
I’m ordering you.
And if you want to see your children
Live to be seventeen
Stop acting like a queen.
Now get to work.
Clean the kitchen
Mop the floor and
Make me some more
Homemade apple pies.”
Many were the times
He dressed the children up so fine, then
Tell them they weren’t really mine.

“Mommy, are you my real Mommy?
Daddy says I wasn’t in your belly. He says I was inside the Mommy that died.
Daddy says you adopted me. If you adopted me, does that mean you can unadopt me too?
That’s what Daddy says you might do if I get in your way
Or make too much noise when I play.

“Mommy, Mommy, who will my Mommy be
If you unadopt me?”

When I put my arms around them
And tell them these things weren’t true
He’d threaten to make me black and blue

The kids would stare at him
Then at me.
After a while
The oldest went blank
And both got spanked.

“Stop crying,” he’d growl
As he slapped their arms.
“I’m going to hit Mommy
Not you.”

Bang bang boom
Right there in the living room.

“See those bruises on her arms?
She gave them to herself.”

So confused were they
That even when they played
Their eyes were glazed
For they never knew
What to believe,
Their own eyes
Or their father’s lies.

All confused like this
Is how he’d take them away
Here or there or anywhere
As long as they weren’t near me.

For you see
He was conniving
From the very start
To portray me as a neglectful mother
An arrogant professional women’s libber
Who never cooked dinner.

Yet the court didn’t listen
When I tried to explain
That I couldn’t stop him
When he shoved the children in the car,
That when I’d protest
He’d just smirk and say,

“Surely you jest.
One more word out of you
And I’ll show you what I can do.
I’ll lock you in room
Or do things to the kids that will make you swoon.
So if you care about them
Or care about you
Do as I tell you to do.

“Don’t cook dinner
Don’t buy them toys
And if you find some ploy
To get around me
I promise to destroy ...

“Well, I won’t say
I decided to be a nice guy today.
But if you want me to be nice
You have to pay the price.

“Stay in the closet.
Go read or write.
Go pray to your God.
Ha! Ha! Let me know when He makes things all right.
By the way the kids and I are going out tonight.
And if you don’t want a fight
When you tell the kids ‘goodbye’
You better not look sad and sigh.

“You better smile and tell them you’re glad
They have such a wonderful Dad
Who takes them to all these special places
And be sure to say
You don’t want to be with them today
Because you have more important things to do
Like write a letter or two
To your ridiculous family.”

He’d warn the babysitters
That I should never call
Lest I forestall the children’s growth.
And he let the neighbors know
That I was so busy with my career
That I sneered
At motherhood
So he – the poor bleeding neglected husband –
Was the one who took the children to the doctors
And outside to play
While in the house I stayed
Doing professional things
Talking to my girlfriends on the phone
Leaving him all alone.

All these things he did
And more.

________________________

Like once,
On a beautiful autumn day
Perfect in every way
He sent the children outside to play
Underneath the beautiful tree
In our front yard.

But the tree was right near the street
And the children, barely two and five,
Were far too young to play outside
Without an adult nearby.

“I have to get out there before they die!”

I ran towards the door.
But he got there first
And there he stood
Fury in his eyes.

“Don’t move,” said he.
Unless you want to get screwed
Dry.
You’re probably dry as a bone
But if I can get inside
I’ll pound you so hard you’ll bleed
Bleed enough to die.
Then I won’t have to go the trouble
Of killing you.

“Stop crying and weeping
And stop repeating
How the kids might wander into the street.
Why should you care?
You never take them anywhere.
You don’t even want to comb their hair!

“Oh yes, I know you’re always fighting me
To let you be with them.
Yes, yes, you fight me all the time
But you don’t mean it.
You’re just pretending.
I guess it was my fate
To marry a fake.

“And by the way
If some day you run away,
The children stay with me.
It’s all arranged, you see.

“Now get upstairs
Or I’ll pull you by the hair.
Go to our bedroom window, tout suite,
And wait for me.”

Panicked that the kids would get run over
I ran to the bedroom and waited for him,
Not caring if that day my battle for dignity
I didn’t win.
I had to let him get it over with -
Whatever he was going to do or say -
So I could go grab the children
Before they ran into the street.

Pushing the curtain aside
He smiled and said,
“Look, the leaves are turning red.
What a beautiful day.
A perfect October day.
Isn’t it sweet to see the children play
Under our beautiful tree?
Too bad it’s near the street.

“Oops, it’s not our tree.
It’s my tree.
For if you try to flee
All we have will belong to me.
Actually
It’s all been arranged.”

Then he sighed
Ever so wistfully
“Wouldn’t it be so much easier, and cheaper,
If you just disappeared?”

With his arm around me
In what looked like a lover’s embrace
With his being full of hate
He went on to say
He’d hang me from a tree
If I didn’t do this or that.
Giggle Giggle
Or burn the house down
With me in the middle.
Giggle Giggle

________________________________

The custody battle – three years long.
At last the final hearing date was set.
On that beautiful autumn day
I woke up and prayed
“Dear God, Grant me victory today.”
Yet walking to the courthouse
I trembled inside.

For almost a year
I had wanted to die.
Came close to suicide
Homicide too.
It was so bad
That all I could do
Was go to church every day
And pray for God to stop me.

And God – He or She –– sent strangers
To pray with me
Friends to stay with me
Drops of love
Gifts from heaven above.
All this didn’t feel like enough
But I guess it was enough
For I’m still alive and nobody died.

Walking to the courthouse
I smiled at the sky
So confident was I
That God was at my side
That victory would be mine and
That finally the world would see
That I should have custody.

Of course he’d get to see
His children frequently.
After all, they didn’t belong only to me.
But shared custody
Would never work.
For if I had to confer with him
On everything there was to do
To take care of the children two
Life would be a living hell.

Why, I might as well
Still be married to him.
For once again
I’d be stuck in a situation
Where I could never win
Because, according to him,
Everything I did
Was some kind of sin.

_____________________________

I married too young
With so many self-doubts
I was already one down.
All it took to weaken me
Was his frown
And threats to pound me
Into the ground
Along with a few arm twistings
Rapes and threats of worse.

And it didn’t help
That there was no one there for me.
For when I wanted to flee
My family wasn’t talking to me
And the police ...
They said to wait until he had already
Burned, blinded, or bludgeoned me.
Then they’d come over and see
If he had broken any law.

Meanwhile he was my problem,
Not theirs.

So even when he threw me down the stairs
And threatened to cut off my pubic hair
Burn me alive
Or describe yet another way to make me die
And how he’d cover it up with some clever lie
There was nobody to help.

My friends all said “Run away,”
But where was I to stay?
They were all too afraid of him
To let me in.
There weren’t any battered women’s shelters then
Or if there were, I had never heard of them.

So I just jumped in the car
Not knowing where to go
Only that it had to be far
Far away from him.

_____________________________

And if,
As you read this poem today
You begin to sneer and say
That I’m only writing to stay
In the past and wallow in self-pity,

Here’s what I say:
Sorry you don’t understand.
But I’ve done all I can
To put the past behind
But somehow it still finds me
And binds me.

Alas, the past can last
And its sorrows
Will touch my tomorrows
Whether I like it or not.

No, this poem isn’t a way
To make self-pity stay.
It’s just a bouquet of flowers
For all those lost hours.
_______________________________

“Bye” I say
To the memories
Which like ghosts
Are being swept away
By the winds of time
To a place divine.

Then I fall to the ground
And plead,
“Don’t go. Don’t go.
You are a part of my soul.
Please don’t be angry with me
For sending you away.
But I can’t,
I just can’t stay with you forever.
For I want to play
With my grandchildren
And not see him shoving me in the house
Yelling at me,
‘Get away from those kids, you mouse.
Kids stay away from her
She’s evil and full of sin.’

“And when the children would cry
He’d slap their hands
Saying that was the only way to make them understand
That I was no good
And that therefore they should
Love only him, not me.

“‘Sorry, I had to slap your faces too.
See what Mommy made me do?
She made me hit the both of you.’
Then he’d whisk them away.”

__________________________

Today
As I see the memories
Finally begin to flee
I can’t bring myself
To say “So long”
For I know that for them
I will sometimes long.

It’s not just saying good-bye to the pain
But to my youth
Which I will never see again
And to my illusion
A reflection of our culture’s well ingrained delusion
That if only I had been a good and giving enough wife
I could have ended the marital strife.

My illusion, my delusion
That I could go back
And do the custody battle over again
And this time, do it “right” and win.
Or go back and start my life over again
And be like my own twin sister
Whose life, although not carefree,
Didn’t have so much misery.

“I’ll always love you,” I whisper to the memories
As they go away.
“And I’ll come visit you
When I must or when you call to me.”

Then they whisper back to me,
“We’re not really gone
Just in a final resting place.
We’ll sit here and wait for you
And applaud you no matter what you do.

“Don’t worry, we will never desert you.
We are here with all our longings and our tears
But we have no fear.
We know we’re fine
Almost divine.

“So go ahead and play
With your grandchildren today.
And know that it’s okay
If we’re here too.
Maybe it makes being with them
Even sweeter.”