My neighbors across the hall are a straight couple about my age with two small children. Every night, after dinner, while she's cleaning the kitchen, he comes in and starts screaming at her. The topic varies. Sometimes he doesn't like dinner, sometimes he's angry she went grocery shopping, sometimes the kids made a mess and she didn't clean it fast enough. Every night, he screams until she and the kids start crying, and then their apartment gets very, very quiet. On Saturday night, if he stays home, he invariably starts to beat her. I can hear all of this from my apartment. I've called the police several times. She won't press charges, so there's nothing they can do. He doesn't beat the kids--he just screams at them--so child services has no reason to step in. It's awful for her, it's awful for the kids, and it's awful for the rest of us who can do nothing more than what we're already doing.
Earlier this week, the husband stopped me to chat about the kids since their youngest is about the same age as my only. The sight of this man makes my skin crawl. He disgusts me. I only barely managed to be civil and that I only did for the sake of my daughter. I couldn't justify provoking him by speaking my mind when there was a chance she would be in danger.
Today, I stopped the wife to let her know that I can hear what's going on over there and that it sounds frightening and terrible. I told her that if she ever needed anything, if she even needed to just get away, that I am almost always home. She seemed embarrassed and she laughed and explained that they "just fight a lot." I told her I didn't want to embarrass her or be rude, but I was scared for her. And then I pretended I accepted her "fighting" explanation, told her that her kids are adorable, and walked away.
There's really nothing more I can do.
I hate feeling helpless.
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