Fighting Through the Fog

SENSITIVE CONTENT: Refers to Domestic Abuse

The fog rolls off the Pacific Ocean, covering the hills surrounding San Francisco in an impenetrable cloak of gray. From China Beach, the last glimpses of the Golden Gate Bridge vanish as if its bold red arches had never been suspended there at all. Only the pulsing of the ocean’s waves — in rhythm with my pounding heart — remain, echoing through the fog.

How am I here? Two thousand miles from home, walking unfamiliar terrain, hiding because my next breath depends on it. But the closer the fog encroaches on the beach, the nearer the danger comes, the more I feel like I’m going to suffocate.

Just like he suffocated me for fifteen years. And then tried to kill me.

Bitter tears rise in my eyes, making the spectacular view shimmer and wave in front of me. Pressure fills my chest, and my bones ache, but not from the damp cold of February. For the first time since I fled, I let the tears fall, running in rivulets down my cheeks.

The river turns to a flood, and I forget the spectacular landscape surrounding me as the tears drip onto my puffy coat and sandy jeans. This has to be in my head. Surely I’ve hit my head, or am trapped in a nightmare, or overdosed on the ski-accident Vicodin I swore I’d never touch again. There’s no way I’m here, in a place I’ve only ever seen on the silver screen, fighting for the right to live.

The green hills of the Marin Headlands across the strait fade from view as the fog billows between us. It occurs to me, not for the first time, that I’m on my own.

A brisk wind gusts over the hill and blows the fog clear of the headlands. At the far west end of the steep hills, the lighthouse winks at me, the light keeping me, like the boats at sea, off the rocks. The gold flash pulls me back to the present moment, curled up on a mussel-covered rock on the beach.

As I watch the ocean waves swirl around the buoys and a lone sailboat works its way along the coastline’s contour, I allow myself to marvel at this place. I may never get the opportunity again. Never before have I tasted the ocean’s salt on my lips or felt the tingle of such thick fog against my skin. Flowers of all shapes and colors blossom even in the dead of winter, a far cry from the deep snows and Midwestern plains I’ve left behind.

San Francisco, hidden from view by the steep hills over my shoulder, is a riot of color and noise. No two buildings are the same, in much the same way that no two of its residents are alike, and murals and graffiti cover every available wall. The differences between it and rural Kansas make me realize there’s so much more to the world, and I don’t want to just dip my toes in. I want to splash headlong through it.

For the first time in my life, my path isn’t carved in stone. Everything I believed my life would look like had flown out the window. Now I’m drifting, wandering, on my own. I have to keep moving to stay three steps ahead of the man who I know has just bought a plane ticket to California in pursuit of me. San Francisco is but a blip on the map.

Being in the Bay Area for three days has made me wonder if I could ever start over, live somewhere new, and become the person I used to know; the confident, creative, intelligent, and funny woman I once was before my husband beat it from my heart. But does that woman still exist? Or has she died under fifteen years of his stranglehold? Has she lost her courage, too terrified to ever rise to the surface? Can she make it on her own? I don’t know the answers, and it may be a long time before I find out. 

A warm hand runs down my coat sleeve and slips into mine. The corner of my mouth flickers upward. I may be on my own, but I’m not alone. 

My hand tightens around Shane’s. My friend sits beside me on the cold basalt stone, watching a pair of white egrets play in the surf. I hardly know him — if you can call one hike and a million messages back and forth on Facebook knowing someone. But right now, Shane’s the only person I trust, the only person my husband hasn’t seduced with his twisted truths.

No one believed my fearful proclamations that tumbled from my mouth the morning I ran with nothing but a garbage bag of clothes, important documents, and my cat. He would never harm me; he loved me! Besides, how could such a kind man be capable of anything so vile? No, surely I was the one who had snapped or sought attention. Not even the police, who offered mental health services to me rather than protection, would help when I discovered my husband’s plot to make me disappear as completely as the Golden Gate Bridge I’d been watching. 

Everyone who should have had my back had just become a liability. But there was one person who heard me and believed me.

Shane squeezes my hand, and I turn to look at him. His eyes reflect the blue-gray of the sea. There’s kindness and understanding in them; an understanding of what it’s like to leave an abusive relationship. “You okay?”

A shiver runs through me. The shiver turns to shakes; shakes I can’t stop. My friend pulls me tight into his arms. My ear presses against his warm chest, listening to the sound of his heartbeat. It’s fast. He’s scared.

We both know my husband will show up in the Bay Area tomorrow. He’s searching for me; my bank account confirmed it. But how do I stay two steps ahead of him when no one believes I’m in danger? And what will happen that day when we have a standoff in the street, or he appears on my doorstep, or is having dinner at the next table in a restaurant? 

Will he use the gun he’s bought and hidden? Or will he try and lure me back to the privacy of our home, the gilded cage where I had been trapped for so long, so that he won’t blemish the perfect image he’s polished for himself?

And what about Shane? Will his attempts to cut me from a narcissist’s web cost him everything?

His mind must be grappling with the possibilities too, and his heart pounds twice for every breaker that strikes the shore. But I cling to the constant beating, to Shane’s steadiness and courage. My shakes begin to wash out with the tide.

The fog lifts off one end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and its red arches and cables glow in the sunshine fighting its way through the fog from the west. A glimmer of hope makes me dares me to breathe the salty sea air. This fear will one day lift, and I’ll be able to live, bold as the bridge before me, showing my true colors. My eyes wander the crimson contours as I cement the image in my mind.

Even if this all goes wrong, and I end up at the bottom of the sea, I have to hope. I need something to fight for. 

Shane’s lips brush against the top of my head. “Everything’s going to turn out okay.”

God, how I want to believe it.