This is hard.
About two years ago, I was temping at another big bank that started with a “W”, when I had to go to NY for a friend’s wedding. The wedding was beautiful and on the last days of leaving, I went to visit my mom. Everything was alright until we got the call from my sister that she took a ride with her husband and had jumped out of the car to escape him.
What followed was the most craziest thing. He had always been not so sane in the head and had taken her son. My sister, beaten had jumped out of the car to escape, knowing that she couldn’t leave her son behind. We brought her to WA with us after unsuccessfully trying to get her son back. She eventually returned to NY a week later to reunite with them. Something that I didn’t understand at the time and I was angry at her.
I haven’t spoken to her since then.
About a week ago, I was telling my mother that the wedding that we had postponed due to finances was back on. More on that in a bit. She mentioned that the police are looking for my sister’s husband. That he’d threatened to kill her. She had taken her son and ran. My mother hadn’t heard from her in a week.
Sunday morning, I received a call from my sister. She asked me how could she go about to get a loan to pay for an apartment. I told her that without a job, it will be hard. She wanted me to ask my mother for help. My mother had initially offered the help but we are all struggling. Plus there was no security at all that her husband won’t find her. NY’s a large place, but a small town sometimes. There were so many holes in her story. I don’t exactly know how she would think that he wouldn’t find them in this apartment she wanted and kill them both. The people wanted $2800 deposit, a sum neither my mom or I have easily. The rent was $850 with no lease. We talked about it back and forth. My mother was going to find the money and give it to her.
But then Monday morning, my sister called my mother and accused her of speaking to her husband. About calling him and making the situation “worse”. My mother, never to back down, flew off the handle. In fact, is was him that had called her and threatened her. Seeing that my sister was still listening to his voicemails and taking his side, or at least believing what he was saying, my mother now refused to get involved. She urged my sister to return to her house.
By Monday night, I urged her to go back to my mom’s place and call the police and if he shows up, to call 911 immediately. With my heart breaking, my nephew crying in the background and my much abused sister on the phone, I had to tell her that I could not offer any help. She was going to a shelter.
Since Sunday morning and today I had maybe four hours of sleep. This has been going on for twelve years and I finally had thought that it was going to come to and end. In my head, I justified that everyone has to die sometime. It’s the one finality of life. Two years ago, I prepared my heart that I would never see my sister again.
There are so many things that I don’t understand in this world and for years I will struggle with this decision. But I’m worn out. She’s twenty-nine and this cycle has to stop.