The dents in Paul’s front door, he says, are from a time Rocky tried to beat it down to get to Michelle. But at the time that didn’t really register to him as violent, not dangerously so. It’s the kind of violence that seems so difficult to evaluate in the moment, but crystal-clear in hindsight—which is to say that this is precisely what domestic violence looks like. Paul is hardly alone in his failure to register the portent of it. But imagine it’s not Rocky at Paul’s front door, beating at it, kicking it, screaming for a woman inside. Imagine it’s a stranger. Who wouldn’t call the police?
...more
