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A new look, a new life

For more than a decade, he made the decisions for her. Not anymore.

By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN
Published March 6, 2007

TAMPA - He was nice. That was the first thing she noticed about him.

He was almost 10 years older than she was. She liked his mop of red hair and his ability to fix things. That was about all it took. They married on her mama's farm in Lithia. She was 16.

At the ceremony she clutched wildflowers her mama had picked from the field underneath the power lines. There were yellow ones, the kind that bees like. And purple flowers, the ones that stain your fingers. And white ones with yellow centers.

They had four children. He went to work and she stayed home and took care of the kids and tended the farm. She woke up at 4:30 every morning to milk the goats, feed the chickens and gather eggs. Dinner every night was off the land.

He picked out all her clothes for her - oversized T-shirts and baggy shorts. He never took her out, never bought her a dress, never let her get her hair done. Once a year she would tie her limp brown hair tight at the nape of her neck with an elastic band. It took only three snips to chop off the ponytail.

On her 19th birthday she had a party. Afterward he accused her of eyeing her brother's friends. He pulled her hair and punched her in the head.

"Maybe I did look, but didn't realize it," she would say later. "He made me think it was my fault."

Not long after that he threw hot water at her and burned her stomach because she made his tea too strong. He said he was sorry and called her "baby." She thought he meant it, so she stayed with him.

She lived each day carefully after that, trying her best not to set him off. But if the meatloaf was too dry or the kids were too loud, he would erupt.

She would curl up on the floor as he kicked her with his boots on. Once, he drew blood above over her right eyebrow. The children would hide in a bedroom until the beating ended, then come out crying, "Are you okay, Mommy?"

She called the police again and again, but never followed through with charges. She blamed their money troubles, she blamed the drugs he took, she blamed herself. But she never blamed him.

One night she went to the emergency room. When the nurses saw her cracked ribs, social workers came and took the children away. That night he beat her for an hour for losing the kids. Then she got up and made pork chops, fried green beans and biscuits for his dinner.

She told him she was going to visit her mama and she left the farm and moved into the shelter.

* * *

She was going to cut off her ponytail again but the other women told her not to. A hair salon in New Tampa was doing free makeovers for everyone at the domestic violence shelter. She should come along.

At 27, she was going to get the first real haircut of her life.

When the day came, the stylist ripped the wax from her brows, taking hundreds of stray hairs with it. It stung. She felt alive.

Then the stylist shook loose the orange elastic band from her ponytail and shampooed and conditioned her shoulder-length hair. "It feels so good," she said as she clutched the brown purse she had picked up at the shelter's thrift store.

"How do you want your hair done?"

She didn't know what to say. She struggled to grasp the magnitude of the moment. He had always made every decision for her.

So the stylist just started cutting. She gave her sideswept bangs and long layers. She sprayed volumizer in her hair and used a round brush and hair dryer to make her roots stand up high, giving her a poof at the crown of her head.

She stared in the mirror. She buried her face in her hands. "My children aren't going to recognize me," she said.

She wasn't sure she recognized herself. She hugged the stylist and walked out the door. The name of the salon glowed behind her: New Identities.

Dong-Phuong Nguyen can be reached at nguyen@sptimes.com or (813)269-5312. Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

EDITOR'S NOTE

About this story

The woman in this story asked that her name not be used. Details of her story and her calls to the police were verified through public records.

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Encounters is dedicated to small but meaningful stories. Sometimes they will play out far from the tumult of the daily news; sometimes they may be part of the news. To comment or suggest an idea for a story, please contact editor Mike Wilson at mike@sptimes.com or (727)892-2924.

[Last modified March 6, 2007, 01:00:55]