Threats Find Fertile Soil, Blossom Into a Mother’s Fear

This is one of those columns that, in all honesty, almost got scrapped. Not because I don’t believe the woman’s story, but because I suspect many readers won’t.

Hers is a story from the gauzy corners of our lives, where you can’t make out clearly what’s happening or where events will lead. In this case, the story is about a mother’s fear that something dreadful might happen but not being able to say for sure that it will. My guess is that it will almost certainly divide readers into two camps: one group saying, “I know exactly what she’s going through,” and the other group saying, “I don’t believe her.”

She came to my attention with a letter that began: “I am writing this because I do not know what else to do. All of the talk and books and TV reportage and blather about domestic violence . . . it all means nothing.”

She went on to describe a life of fear and pent-up frustration because her son-in-law, who is estranged from her daughter, has physically and verbally threatened various family members. She sees herself and her daughter as trapped in a web, living daily with the fear that the man in their lives might someday make good on his threats--but in the meantime being unable to do much about it.

“When O.J. was exonerated [in the criminal trial], he [her son-in-law] made a point of calling my daughter and saying, ‘Hey, bitch, the coast is clear,’ ” the woman said.

The physical threats against her daughter and herself, the woman said, probably don’t rise to the level where a criminal case can be made against him. Her daughter isn’t a “battered wife” in the sense that she is beaten on a regular basis, but she has been struck and pushed and had her phone ripped from the wall.

For this column, the woman was willing to let me identify her, even if it meant her son-in-law might read it and get angry. “I don’t give a damn what he thinks,” she told me when we talked. “If it sets him off, it sets him off.”

The woman is 52 and a marketing and public relations professional. Her daughter is 30 and they both live in South County. The son-in-law, in his early 30s, is the kind of guy “who if you met him, you would find personable and humorous and would like his company and might like to go have a beer with. But if you cross him, he might do something like head-butt you.”

She said her son-in-law’s temper flares suddenly. “At first, I was incredulous that my daughter would tolerate being hit even once. Then, when I realized what was going on and I confronted him, he threatened me. I have a temporary restraining order against him. I have a hammer by the side of my bed, as well as oven cleaner [to spray in his face].”

The woman knows shelters are available and that police should be called. But what do you do when the threat of violence, rather than ongoing provable violence, is the menace in your life?

That is the dark corner in which many women are painted. “As a grandmother and mother, I am fearful,” the woman said. “I fear for their daughter [who is 4]. What’s going to happen to her? I’m concerned that somebody is going to come up very seriously hurt. When someone looks at you and says they’re going to kill you, you’ve got to take it seriously.”

She has talked to police repeatedly, she said, but they seem handcuffed themselves. “I told one of them, ‘I don’t want to have this conversation after a graveside service.’ ”

Police in recent years have gained more leverage to intervene in domestic violation situations, but they still hate the calls. The situations can be dangerous and volatile and in cases where there isn’t clear-cut violence, the people involved often give radically different stories. And when the issue at hand is the perceived fear of violence rather than a violent incident, police can’t do much at all.

Deep down, this woman knows that. She knows she may need the proverbial “smoking gun” to prove her point. “There have been days in desperation where I’m up at 3 in the morning, thinking he would come in the door. How will it end? With someone dead? In jail? Everybody living happily ever after? I’m helpless. I tell myself I’m not helpless, no matter what wall I’m up against. I’m not a person to give up, but the reality is, what in the hell am I supposed to do? If the phone rings at 10:30 at night, my heart jumps. Is he banging on my daughter’s door, hitting her? Is he back in her house?”

What bothers me is that even if this woman is making up every single thing she told me, we all know that the details ring true for countless other women. “He’s outright threatened me repeatedly,” she said. “He’s said, ‘I’m coming for you next time.’ Big bravado me, 5 feet 4 and 112 pounds, at the time he made the threat to my face, I said, ‘Don’t break the door in. I’ll leave it unlocked. You come in, and I’ll be waiting for you.’ ”

We all know that’s no way to live.

Or, no way to die.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.