Janey's Story - Part 2

Linda

The week following my decision to leave, I started working on the logistics of my escape. A major consideration was where to go – my husband knew all of our friends and would track me down if I went to any of them. I could not endanger them in that way.


Another consideration was my work – my husband knew where I worked. I was a middle manager in a large corporation in California. That week I was scheduled to go to a class in New York with a fellow manager. We were both California natives and had never seen New York, so we had already planned to go back two days early and site-see. We would then attend a three day class before returning home. I decided to go ahead with the class because it would give me time far away from home to plan in more detail.


I need to say now that no-one was aware of my situation – not my immediate family, close friends or work colleagues. This is typical of a battered woman – it feels embarrassing to admit what you are going through and you know that the response will be “leave him.” So until you are ready to leave, you keep it a secret. This is not healthy, but it’s the way it often is.


Back to the story - my colleague, Linda, and I flew off to New York. I didn’t know her well – we were in the same overall work group but were not working on the same project. We didn’t even know each other well enough to go to lunch together. So I was unprepared when, the second night we were there, while eating dinner in a very nice restaurant and talking about our site-seeing adventures, I suddenly found myself calmly telling her (a relative stranger) the whole unpleasant story. She was surprised, but listened supportively. She asked how she could help and I immediately responded that she really couldn’t do anything, but I appreciated her listening.

We returned from New York on a Saturday. On Monday morning I went to work, still in the midst of finalizing my plans. Around 9am, Linda suddenly appeared in my cubicle. She walked up and placed a key on the desk in front of me. She said simply, “When you are ready to leave, I want you to come to my house.” I was so shocked I don’t remember what I said in response. I only know that I agreed.


Think about this for a moment – I didn’t really know Linda and she didn’t really know me, yet she handed me the key to her home and invited me to stay with her. Because I had reached out to her with my story, she reached out to me with this wonderful offer. For those of you who are struggling with a decision to stay or to go, know that there are many such people out there. They may be your work colleagues or they may be the women at the local domestic violence organization, but you need to know they are there and you can reach out to them.


Back to the story – I now had a place to go. Linda was known to have the worst commute in our work group. She lived almost an hour and a half south of our workplace in a small sea-side town. She had resisted moving closer because she eventually wanted to live there full time. My husband didn’t know Linda – he’d never even heard of her. That meant her home was the perfect destination.


It was now one day before my escape.