Balance of Power

    He stepped inside, hands in the pockets of his overcoat. The room was bright and orderly. But the visceral feeling he had on entering a home where abuse had occurred made the violence feel near at hand.

    He turned to Joan. Whereas Lara resembled her mother—slender, with a certain tensile delicacy—Joan was rounder, with snub, placidseeming features altered, on this day, by a wary, guarded look. "I've felt funny," Kerry told her, "having an almost-wife whose family I'd never met."

    As Joan smiled, a polite movement of the lips, she seemed to study him. "It was strange for us, too. You and Lara came as a surprise."

    Though he felt the irony of his own evasion, Kerry gave his accustomed response. "It even surprised me," he answered. "When I got shot, Lara awakened to my virtues. A hard way to get the girl."

    Joan appraised him. Then, belatedly, she motioned him to an overstuffed chair, and sat on the couch across from him. Kerry resolved to be direct. "Lara loves you," he said simply. "And now she worries for you."

    Curtly, Joan nodded, as if confirming her own suspicion. "So she asked you to come."

    "No—I asked." Kerry looked at Joan intently. "I used to prosecute domestic violence cases. I've seen too many 'family secrets' go wrong, too many people damaged. Especially children."

    That there was more to this Kerry did not say. But the purple swelling of her eye stirred all of the emotions his father had left roiling inside a frightened boy of six or seven—a hatred of bullies; a sympathy for victims; the sense of guilt that he could not protect his mother; the angry need to sublimate this powerlessness through action. Nervously, Joan glanced at the door, as if Kerry's presence would summon her husband.

    "I'll be all right," she insisted.

    "You won't be. And neither will Marie." He paused, choosing his words with care. "I know you're watching out for her. But in the end it's not enough. When he harms you, he harms Marie."

    Joan hesitated. Kerry watched her decide how much to say, how far to trust this man—at once so familiar, a constant presence on the screen or in the newspaper, a subject of relentless curiosity among her friends— yet a stranger in her living room.

    "It's not John's fault," she said.

    "Perhaps not," Kerry answered. "But it's his responsibility. And yours."

    Joan kneaded her dress, a nervous gesture which seemed intended to gain time. "John's life growing up was hard," she said at last. "I don't think his father beat him, or his mother—it was more like John was terrorized. If he violated a rule, no matter how small, his dad would lock him in his room—maybe for a weekend, with no escape except for bathroom breaks. And sometimes not for that." She gave a helpless shrug. "It's like John goes back there—like someone throws a switch which sets him off. Afterward he's so sorry I almost feel for him."

    To Kerry, this sounded like the Stockholm Syndrome—where a captive begins identifying with her captor. Like John Bowden, the boy, must have done.

    "Except now John's the father," Kerry told her. "The only difference is that he's violent. And that he abuses his wife instead of his child."

    Stubbornly, Joan shook her head. "He doesn't want to be like that. When I first met him, he wasn't at all."

    "How was he then?"

    "Wonderful." The word seemed to fortify her; a look akin to nostal

gia flickered in her eyes. "He was so responsible, so sure of himself, so determined to take care of me. He was unlike any boy I'd met—considerate, hardworking, and never drank a drop of alcohol. He was wonderful with my family, especially our mom. And I was the center of his world."

    This was all too familiar, Kerry thought. "What about friends?"

    "We didn't have that many—there really wasn't time." Her voice trailed off—the impact, Kerry guessed, of illusion crashing into reality. After a time, she added in a chastened tone, "He just wanted to be with me, he said. Sometimes he'd get jealous of other men, really for no reason. But he said it was because he loved me so completely he'd gotten too afraid of losing me."

    As she paused, shoulders curled inward, Kerry felt certain she had never talked about this before. "And that felt right to you?" he asked.

    She seemed to parse her memories—or, perhaps, to decide whether to respond. In a monotone, she answered, "Every day he sent flowers, or left notes on my front porch. I could hardly believe anyone loving me like that."

    Though perhaps Kerry imagined it, the last phrase seemed to carry a faint shudder. Quickly, Joan glanced at the door again.

    "When did he first hit you?" Kerry asked.

    "When I was pregnant with Marie." Pausing, Joan briefly closed her eyes. "We were in bed, listening to an oldies station. Then they started playing 'The Way You Look Tonight . . .' "

* * *

    The first few bars made Joan smile—at seven months pregnant, it was hard to imagine herself in Lara's white prom dress, altered through her mother's best efforts. Then she felt John staring at her.

    "This song reminds you of him."