He hadn’t hit her in several years, but when you’ve been beaten you never forget it. The bruises go away but the scars remain, deep, hidden, raw. You stay beaten. It takes a real coward to beat a woman. Eventually, he had said he was sorry. She said she forgave him, but she did not. In her book some sins cannot be forgiven, and beating your wife is one of them. She had made a vow that she was still determined to keep—one day she would walk away and be free. It might be ten years or twenty, but she would find the courage to leave his sorry ass.
