CHAPTER 1: A HAVEN NEEDED

“Mom?” Katie Andrews heard the plaintive voice from the other side of her closed and locked bedroom door. “Are you okay?”

She reluctantly got up from the bed where she had been crying and opened the door. Her two fraternal twin daughters, Susie and Toni, stood in the hallway. “We heard a lot of banging and him slamming the front door as he left. Then, we heard you crying,” Susie, the oldest by a few minutes, explained.

“We have to do something, Mom,” Toni said.

“Did he do something with you two?” Katie asked, not wanting to hear the answer, if it was the wrong answer.

They looked at each other and nodded in unison. “He’s touching us more than ever. He said that our turning 18 last week gave him the right.”

“Did he …?” Katie hesitantly asked.

They shook their heads. They shared a room, so what happened would likely happen to both. “It isn’t the sex, Mom. It’s what he does and the way he wants it. You know we’ve had sex, right? With boys, I mean. We talked about that, and you put us on the pill. It’s not that, it’s … he …”

“Yeah, he’s rough and crude and … he’s our dad. I mean, isn’t that supposed to mean he protects us and not abuses us?”

“If we don’t do what he says right away …”

“He hits you?” Katie asked.

“Yeah, but not like he does you, mom.”

“Not yet, anyway.”

She stared at her girls. They just turned 18 years old, and they are facing this now? He, her husband, and their father … they didn’t even refer to him by name anymore. It was just ‘him’. For years, she’d gone through long periods of physical abuse, bruises, split lips, and black eyes. But he had left the girls alone. The psychological abuse was always there. Now they were 18 years old and women. Now he was turning to them, too.

They were right. They’d talked and talked. They had to do something. Talking was easy, but doing something was hard. Years of abuse had done that to her. She tried as she could to protect the girls, to give in to him so he would leave the girls alone. Even that was failing now, it seemed. If her will to fight wasn’t broken yet, it soon might be. They absolutely had to do something and do it soon.

“If we leave him, we have to really leave him. If we leave and stay in the area, he’ll find us. Are you ready to leave and go far away? Start over somewhere? Maybe find a safe place that will accept us and protect us?”

“Mom,” Susie said despondently, “he won’t let us even be on the teams anymore. Our friends are … besides, there are just weeks left of school and everyone will be off somewhere.”

“You’re right, Mom, we have to leave. Someplace away and hopefully safe from him,” Toni added.

“I’ll start searching,” Katie promised. Maybe, just maybe, their combined strength and trust in each other could make them strong enough to follow through.

* * * *

When the girls arrived home after school (the last week of classes for the seniors), they were late mostly because they waited for him to leave for the bar, his routine after work. Katie rushed them into the bedroom. The guy was paranoid about visitors, and she feared he had a hidden camera around, but likely just covering the front door only.

“What is it, Mom?” the girls asked.

She handed them the sheet of paper she had printed from an advertisement she found online.

“Haven?” Susie asked. Katie told her to read it. “If you are desperate for a safe escape where you can be cared for and protected, contact Haven. Maybe we can help.”

“That’s it?” Toni exclaimed. “That doesn’t really say much.”

“I know,” Katie conceded. “I was searching for safe houses, battered or abused women’s facilities in neighboring states, and this popped up on the screen.”

“You weren’t searching on your computer, were you?” Toni asked, concerned.

Katie laughed, “No, no … he checks my browser history frequently. And, my emails. No, I went to the library, created a new throw-away email account on Yahoo, and searched on their computers. I printed this on their printer.” She watched them. “Okay, it isn’t much, but I’m going to contact them. They give an email address. It sounds promising, though, right? Haven. That’s what we need right now: a haven.”

They talked for another 30 minutes before Katie realized she had better get supper ready before he returned. No sense in asking for more trouble.

She contacted Haven by email and detailed that it concerned her and her two daughters. She explained the sexual, physical, and emotional abuse she had endured for years and that it was now starting with her 18-year-old daughters. Then, she hoped for a response.

The next day, she was surprised by the quick response from Haven. She read it carefully and printed it. They were asking for details. They said Haven was intentionally a close-knit community separated from the world and must be ***********ive.

She showed it to the girls before he returned from the bar, each with a copy. “Give them what they want. Write it out and give it to me before you leave for school in the morning. I will type it out in emails.”

“Why would they need our body type, breast size, and weight and stuff?” Toni asked. Katie just stared at her. “Right, we have to get out of here.”

She was back at the library the next day. She debated for a moment: one long email containing all our information or three separate emails. It was critical that whatever they did was for all of them.

It did get long. They wanted a short de***********ion of why they were seeking a place at Haven. She included what the girls had written and was impressed. Next was the personal stuff: Katie Andrews, mother, age 34, Caucasian, long blonde hair, hazel eyes, height 5′ 5″, trim body shape, C-cup breasts; Susie Andrews, daughter, age 18, Caucasian, long blonde hair, blue eyes, height 5′ 4″, athletic body shape, C-cup breasts; Toni Andrews, daughter (fraternal twins), age 18, Caucasian, long blonde hair, blue eyes, height 5′ 4″, athletic body shape, C-cup breasts.

Then, they wanted photos. Facial and full body. They gathered in the bedroom to take them, which she sent the next day, identifying who was who.

Then, another response. No question, but that they were very careful and ***********ive. The girls would be out of school the next day. She showed the girls the email response.

“Interviews?” Susie questioned. “This is a process, isn’t it?”

“No kidding,” Toni added. “It sounds like Haven takes all this very seriously. Don’t you think that if we can get accepted, we’ll finally be safe?”

Katie nodded, “Be safe, be helped, and start a new life.” They hugged, finally feeling that there might be hope for them. “They explained that the interview process is for their security as well as ours and that they have others at Haven to protect.” The girls nodded. It was the kind of care and attention to security that they desired, too. “They will come to us for the interviews.