And it has. Over the past week and a half, since the holidays and into the New Year, I’ve sunk into a pit of my own depression. I can paint a smile on my face for the girls, and make it to work on time, but my mood is so low that I can’t see any kind of positives coming anytime soon. It feels like no matter what I do, how patient or reserved I am, that I won’t win. The odds are stacked against me—concerning financials, custody, security, and everything else—and it all feel insurmountable.
After the Christmas Eve debacle, I expected something to change in either of the cases pending against Shane. But unfortunately, as it’s his first offense and the judge on call for the holidays didn’t want to deal with paperwork—or so Laurel explained—virtually nothing changed with our domestic violence trial or restraining order. I was hoping his visitation would get cut, or maybe even limited, but all he got was a warning through his lawyer’s office.
It seems that because I never reported anything before, and the justice system could only go off of the he-said/she-said arguments that Shane and I had, that it was better to do nothing. And unless I am willing to bring my girls in to testify to their side of the story as Shane was screaming at Dahlia on the phone, which I would avoid at all costs, there’s nothing we can really do.
They were so shaken when they got home that I let them open two presents each on Christmas Eve, something that has always been reserved solely for Christmas Day. Noelle had been crying when she came in, clinging to me like someone might rip her away. Breanna just seemed shaken, though unaware of how serious it all had been. I had to fall asleep in bed with Noelle because she kept talking about Daddy yelling into his phone.
I thought it might be able to impact the divorce filing, but my attorney on that one said that it might not do anything.
And now I understand how the court system fails women like me every day. It doesn’t matter that we have a high-profile case, in some ways that even harms me more. But under the impressions I’ve gathered while going through the first stages of this process, I can just tell that it doesn’t favor the victim.
It worries me whenever I hear that divorce cases could take years, that Shane could drag this out over every dish in our kitchen, or whether or not he’ll pay for the girl’s schooling. And I can’t even think about Walker in this moment, how much my stupid flirtation and thinking I could have a happily ever after so soon after my nightmare has already cost me.
I’m washing a forty-something mom’s dyed blond hair when I hear them. Bridget is one of the hairdressers at the salon, a chic twenty-something who could have been me, once upon a time. She’s whispering to a client, but she isn’t doing a very good job at keeping her voice under the necessary noise level.
“Yeah, it is kind of strange having her here. Kind of like a local celebrity, or … more like a train wreck you can’t look away from.”
The client snorts. “Well, lord knows she’ll only be here until she gets her settlement. Or until he takes her back. Good lord, do you see the arms on that man? How could anyone let him go?”
I can’t see Bridget or her client, due to the stalls of the shampoo stations, but I just know they’re talking about me. My spine stiffens, and my throat goes dry. I don’t want to hear this, but deep down I know that some of the women here have the same opinions as Bridget. They see me as a spectacle, some kind of moron who just wants to punish her rich husband.
“I don’t know, honestly. Shane is just so hot. Anyways, she’ll probably go back to him. It just annoys me that she got hired here with a lapsed license and thinks it’ll turn into something. As if the rest of us haven’t been working our asses off to hone our craft and work endless hours. This is just a fallback job to her.”
Tears prick the corners of my eyes, because their words are so cruel. But also, it’s not as if I haven’t thought those self-deprecating things about myself a thousand times. It isn’t as if I haven’t doubted that I’ll go one hundred percent through with this, or worry each moment how I’ll put food in my daughter’s mouths. I’m furious that these people are debating my life as if it’s some meaningless soap opera or reality show. That they’re justifying the way my husband abused me. I’m angry that they have no clue what they’re talking about, but feel entitled to an opinion about my life.
And I’m ashamed and embarrassed that a lot of the people in here probably think the same thing about me.
It also makes me regret everything I’ve shared with Walker thus far. Because if I really let their poison sink into my wounds, they’re right. I am trading one famous, rich man for another. If things work out with me and Walker, would I not abandon my career once more if he asked me to? Wouldn’t I care more for my family than my individual wants? My track record shows that’s what I would do.
“Excuse me,” I say to the client whose wet hair is in my hands.
Then I dart for the bathroom, almost knocking over a display shelf on my way. I’m only in there for two seconds, my breakdown starting as my shoulders shake and tears fall, before a loud pound comes from the other side of the door.
Ginny knocks and then just walks on in, not even considering that this is a single stall bathroom I could very well be doing something other than crying in.
“What happened?” she asks as soon as she walks in.
I wipe the tears from my burning hot cheeks, trying to breathe through my anger and hurt. “I just overheard a conversation Bridget was having with one of her clients.”
“Let me guess, she was talking about you?” Ginny rubs my arm comfortingly.
A hiccup bursts from my throat, which is only more embarrassing. I’m a grown woman, a mother, and I’m crying over some sticks and stones type shit in the bathroom of my employer. In front of my employer.
“Saying something about how I was just here until my abusive, rich husband decided he wanted me back. That I’d gotten where I was by …” I gulp, because the words are so vile I want to puke them up, “lying on my back.”
Ginny makes a tsk sound, shaking her head at Bridget’s cruelness. I think maybe she’s going to sympathize with me, or say that she’s going to talk to Bridget about her attitude or the things she said. Maybe Ginny is about to tell me she’s going to fire her.
But instead, her eyes slant down with sympathy, but fill with something else. Grit, I’d have to call it.
“You’re going to have to suck it up.”
Her words feel like a slap, and I inhale sharply.
“I’m not trying to be mean, or pour salt in the wound, but in this situation, you might need some salt. You’re a strong-ass woman, Hannah. I’ve seen glimpses of it. Hell, you’ve lasted this long not going back to that bastard, which is a hell of a lot longer than I did the first three or four times I tried to leave my ex. But, honey, people are going to talk about you for the rest of your life. They’re going to point, speculate, say awful things, some of them even directly to your face. Long after this trial is over, and you’re divorced, they’re going to bring it up. It’ll be an anniversary special on some sports network. You’ll be a footnote in history. And that’s just the goddamn truth because of who you’re married to and how the scandal came out. You can either continue to run from that, hiding in bathrooms crying, or you can pull on your big girl panties and show the world just how much of a victim you are not.”