The sun rises. I can still smell the sea on the calm cool air that morning. The flood of sunlight approaching is unstoppable and I have to make a decision. Time breaks our hearts as surely as trees break stone with their roots. I choose to pack what I can without raising suspicion and begin the process of escape. Through the numbness I carry like a shroud pokes a sliver of sadness. Not to be leaving my father, or even for the loss of what little in that house I did value, but because things had to be the way they were. Because if I wanted to be safe and alive I had no other choice than to uproot myself. In my life now I cannot help thinking of all the kids who have to make such terrible choices about their own lives, and those who have their choices made for them.

I arrived at work nervous and distracted. After the store had been open for an hour or two and the early morning business had died down, I approached Sally, my boss and co-worker. I couldn’t bring myself to be more specific about what I was planning to do other than to tell her I had to go away for an undetermined amount of time because of some things that were happening at home. I told her I needed to leave work at least an hour early and apologized over and over. She was, however, quite a bit more understanding than I expected her to be. Not only did she pooh-pooh my apologies and encourage me to leave as soon as I needed to, but she also offered to give me my week’s pay out of the till a day early. It was only later that I realized what people in the community thought of my dad, and that she probably knew well enough why I was leaving.

After our conversation I called the local cab company and told them I needed a cab at Garnache’s at 5 PM. As I called back over the day to be sure they were still sending me one at the time I requested, the continually more and more amused dispatcher gave me her assurances.

For the second time that day I felt gripped by seconds which could neither be delayed nor hurried. Yet they passed, through swipes of a dish with a soapy sponge, through the motion of the broom I pushed into the corners. When I paused, I was aware of time passing, but when I was in motion, performing my various tasks; I was seamlessly borne up and carried with it. The sky darkened that afternoon and it began to rain. A few minutes to five, Sally told me I was through for the day, paid me, and said I should get ready to go. It was pouring by this time, and I peeked out the window for the umpteenth time that day. I was still worried something would happen, that my father would somehow find out and show up early. It was 5:00 and I didn’t see anything yet. I decided to give the cab company a few minutes before I called them back. At 5:01 PM, I checked the window again, and there was a car waiting in the driveway, but it was no cab.

The vehicle sitting in front of Garnache’s was a gleaming white stretch limousine.

Needless to say, I was completely confused. Sally urged me to go out and see what the man getting out of the limo wanted. I opened the door and the rush of falling water filled my ears and deafened what he said. I yelled, “Huh?”

“DID SOMEONE HERE CALL FOR A CAB?”

“Um, yeah, but…”

“YOU HAD A TIME CALL, BUT ALL THE CABS WERE OUT ON CALLS SO THEY SENT THIS CAR. IT WON’T BE ANY EXTRA OR NOTHIN’; THEY JUST DIDN’T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE. YOU CAN SIT IN THE FRONT IF YOU’LL FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE THAT WAY.”

It was so ridiculous, and yet ominous at the same time. Limos=death, a lesson well-learned by watching Sid and Nancy, as well as the lesser-known Dogs in Space. Still, there was no other way to Portland, and I could not afford to be superstitious. I looked back at Sally, who nodded at me to go on. I hugged her, said thanks as warmly as I could muster, and ran out into the rain. I opened the front door of the limo and got in. The driver was a large grinning Italian man, who heaved a sigh as he settled back into his seat. “Alright, miss, where we goin?”

I took a deep breath. “The YWCA on Spring Street up in Portland.” He put the car in gear and pulled out onto the road. The rain died down after we had been driving for a few minutes, and the sky lightened. I would have liked to say that I resisted the temptation to look back but it was utterly impossible. I scanned the road behind us for the red car my father was driving at the time, for any red cars at all. I think I started to make the driver nervous, because he cleared his throat to get my attention.

“Who ya runnin’ from, your husband?”

I wasn’t quite sure if I should tell the truth or not, but he seemed capable of hearing it, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Um, no, my father, actually.”

Without missing a beat, he shook his head and said, “Oh, that’s terrible. I’ve got five kids, and I’ve never harmed a hair on one of ‘em—not that they don’t bug me like all get out!” He winked at me. “I love my wife and she’s helped me raise some beautiful children.”

I mumbled something like, wow, that’s great at the same time I silently thanked him for what he said to me. He could have been suspicious of my reasons for leaving, or painfully clueless, or any of a number of ways I’ve found people can be in reaction to the implicit disclosure of abuse. He went on talking, and I was grateful for his loquacity, as his voice was soothing, and it saved me from having to think of things to say. It began to rain harder again as we neared Portland and I looked over my shoulder less and less frequently. We arrived in front of the YWCA. I wish I could have a snapshot of that moment: me, a bedraggled sixteen-year-old girl seeking shelter at the Y, black hair and black clothes, stepping out from a white stretch limo into the rain one summer night on Spring Street in Portland, Maine. Click.

Gary was standing there under the awning with a woman I had never seen before. I paid my fare with the money Sally gave me, which Gary promptly reimbursed me for, despite my protests. The driver got out and explained to Gary why I had arrived in the limousine as I stood there in complete shock of what I had managed to do. I was there, I was alive, and the whole scene was utterly unbelievable.

The woman from the shelter led me up the stairs to the part of the Y that housed the now-defunct Fair Harbor; shelter for girls aged 7-17. I was dazed, breathing hard and unsure of what would happen next. The woman, whose name I cannot remember, explained to me that I needed to have one of my parents’ permission to stay there, which dumbfounded me. I thought I would be able to get my mom to give me permission, but what about the other kids? If neither parent gave permission, what would happen to them? I dialed the number for my mom’s house in Florida and told her I had left my dad’s house and was staying in a shelter but I needed her permission to remain there. She said, “Of course you can stay there,” and then spoke to the other counselor on duty.

The woman who met me downstairs led me out of the office and introduced me to the other girls there. There weren’t many—the shelter was far from full—but the three girls sitting in front of the television acknowledged me with a brief glance and a nod. Besides the television area I toured the kitchen, dining room, bathrooms, and smoking area. The smoking area was located by the window when I arrived, but smoking inside the building was eventually prohibited and the area where the girls smoked moved outside to the front of the building, where I had first come in. The bedroom she brought me to was about halfway down the hall. I asked about the bunk bed and it was explained to me that usually girls had to share a room, but because the shelter was so empty, I would be on my own.

Although grateful for its solidity that night, I would grow to hate the architecture of the shelter, the green-painted cinderblock walls and huge Plexiglas windows that let you know just how much freedom you didn’t have. I hated the cold terrifying bathrooms that we shared with the other, older Y residents (although I never saw any adults in those bathrooms the whole time I was there). I hated the fact that kitchen knives had to be locked in the office until requested, and then watched vigilantly because of the many suicide attempts the shelter had seen. I hated with all my passion being allowed outside just two hours a day in the middle of the brief Maine summertime. Fair Harbor was a lie, a ruse, a prison, and none of the girls there had done a goddamned thing to deserve confinement. But that first night I was just exhausted and collapsed in my bed without thinking about any of this.

The next day brought worse news than the rules of the shelter. Despite having gotten permission to stay at Fair Harbor from my mother, it was still necessary for the staff to contact my father to let him know where I was. He was furious, naturally, and claimed he had sole custody and that my mother had no right to give me permission to stay. This was untrue, but it began to look as though they could not prevent him from picking me up at any time he chose. The counselors were elusive and didn’t tell him this outright, instead trying to be convincing as possible that my staying at the shelter was advantageous to him. They cited professional help that would be made available, as well as the benefits of a cooling-off period between us.

He finally relented, for the time being, but every minute of every day for about a week I had reason to fear that at any moment he would change his mercurial mind and appear at the shelter demanding me back. I couldn’t sleep at all and could barely eat. I sat by the window watching and waiting, planning each step of my escape should I see his little red car pull up out front. Now and then I would feel so much frustration I would bruise and bloody my fists on the cinderblock wall.

I called my mother again, and she did reassert that she had joint custody of me with my father, but by that time it was too late—I needed proof. While I was talking to her, I asked if, in the worst-case scenario, I could stay with her in Florida for a week or two. I had the money to get there, and I just didn’t want to be without options in case I had to flee out the back door of the YWCA. What she said then was like a time bomb, something that didn’t really affect me at all immediately but had me reeling later on: “I really don’t want you to come down here.” Not in an emergency, not for a visit, not at all. I set my teeth and moved on to the next option. Because no one was doing it for me, I used my two hours of outside time the next day to go down to the courthouse and pick up a copy of my parents’ divorce papers.

The flora in Portland in the summer is limited to a handful of small but pretty parks and the odd patch of grass hiding brick sidewalk from the sun. The salt drenched buildings of the Old Port, so fascinating to tourists, are easy to ignore when you see them every day. As I walk down Spring Street to where it turns into Middle and meets Pearl, I think of the judges that preside over countless divorces. Are they so deadened by the ugliness of imploding marriage that they cannot bear to consider what impact their actions have 3, 6, 12 years later? Do they witness enough misery to forecast the sixteen year old girl hurrying up drab granite steps with the hope that some words on a piece of paper will save her skin?

The clerk was polite by Portland standards, and I had what I was looking for in just a few minutes. The document said defiantly in that standard municipal typeface that my parents had joint custody, which meant either could allow me to stay at Fair Harbor, at least for the shelter maximum of 30 days.

30 days to do what? I wasn’t sure at the time, but I was convinced my father would kill me if I went back home, and I was resolved to do whatever it took to avoid being returned there. The giant and slow wheels of the social service system had been set in motion, with the objective of getting me into state protective custody.

The first social worker I met with in the first few days of my stay at Fair Harbor was Valerie. Ah, Valerie. One look at my black hair and clothes and she was convinced I was a Satanist (or worse). Suffice to say, Satan did not figure in my belief system, and I had the same contempt for her that any teenager would have for a well-meaning but ignorant adult. Still, it was up to me to tell her everything my father had ever done to me, physically and sexually—this, considering our initial introduction, was not an easy task. Still, as I would have to do again and again over the approaching year, I opened my mouth and made the words come out. I was afraid, and ashamed, and desperate not only to be believed, but also to hide my fears from everyone around me.

There were meetings upon meetings. Meetings with social workers, my father, faculty from Waynflete. One of the professionals involved was Gloria, the mother of a girl in my class at school. From the beginning she had the utmost faith in what I was saying and embarked on an extremely antagonistic relationship with my father. She was joined in this antipathy by Valerie after one meeting in which my dad, in one of the fits I was the more accustomed to his having, lunged across the room towards the God-fearing social worker in a startling physical display. From that point on, the two women were like a pair of pit bulls, and Valerie never again made a judgment about my character.

My friend Meredith’s mom had long looked after me and got herself and an attorney involved in my case. Although progress was made, and my father gave up on getting me back anytime soon, it was still quite a fight; one that looked like it would not end before my time at the shelter was up. It was arranged, and agreed to by my dad, that I would stay with Meredith’s family until the outcome of the state’s investigation was decided. 31 days after a wet night and a limousine ride into Portland, I moved into the cottage at the Inn by the Sea where Meredith, her mom and sister were staying until their house in Cape Elizabeth was complete.

The final installment to come in a day or two...