I remembered sitting in the office of a domestic violence counselor in 2001 and hearing her say, “We cannot keep you safe.” She was right and wrong at the same time. It’s very possible that the shelter system in my home town area could not have protected the children and me from my husband because of his military background. It’s also true that God was with our family. At the time, I was terrified and full of panic. The fear for my own safety aside, I had become convinced that my children were in mortal danger from their father. Any sleep I got was interrupted by horrific nightmares. My premonition of doom consumed me, until, in complete panic, I fled. I packed the children and their clothes in my car and was three states away before my husband knew we had left. I ran on adrenaline for those first days after the flight.
I had a friend in Louisiana who had a contact at a women’s shelter in the southwestern part of the state, and that’s were I headed. In my state of panic I somehow deviated from Interstate ten that would have taken me through to New Orleans. I knew that if I could make it to New Orleans, I could make it the rest of the way. Unwilling to go back, I had no choice but to go forward and followed the road signs to New Orleans. That’s all we can really ever do, isn’t it? No going back allowed … we must go forward. That’s exactly like it is when you cross the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, I learned. The causeway is approximately twenty-four miles of twin bridges crossing the second largest salt-water lake in the United States; one two lane bridge travels south and another two lane bridge travels north. Some ten miles onto the southbound bridge, I realized that I couldn’t see the land behind me. Nor, at that point, could I see any land in front of me. It was a white-knuckle moment that paralleled the situation I found myself in. It was no longer possible to turn around and go back toward that which I had left. I couldn’t make a u-turn on the one way bridge and go back toward Mandeville and I had no idea what waited for me at the other end in New Orleans. I had been gone too long from my husband for it to be even remotely safe to go home and I had no idea what was ahead of me outside of homelessness and poverty.
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