Inside, the dining room smelled like roast chicken and fresh bread. We sat. They told me about Emily. She’d been married to a man who shrank her world—isolated her, controlled her, cut her off from help. She finally left with her son asleep in the backseat and almost nothing in her wallet. “She didn’t want to call us until she had to,” Margaret said, voice trembling. “She felt ashamed. Like leaving wasn’t enough if she couldn’t make it all the way home.”Continue reading…
