Page 91 of The Little Flower Shop By the Sea
We stare at each other for a few seconds, the silence broken only by the sound of Amber glugging from the bottle.
‘Great wedding!’ Woody says brightly, trying to lighten the mood. ‘I’d love to get married one day.’
When no one speaks, he carries on: ‘I think marriage is a wonderful institution. Solid, you know.’ He brings his fist down on the table to emphasise his point, but a bit too hard. ‘Ow,’ he says, shaking his hand.
‘It’s not always that way,’ Amber says, as if thinking aloud. ‘Sometimes it can go very, very wrong.’
‘Yes, that’s also very true,’ Woody says as he rubs his sore fist with his other hand. ‘My parents got divorced when I was young. I was mainly brought up by my mother and my aunt.’
‘No –’ Amber waves her bottle over the table – ‘I don’t mean divorced, I meanreallygo wrong, like when violence enters the marriage.’
‘That’s a nasty business,’ Woody says, while Jake and I just listen. ‘When I was training we had to attend a domestic violence incident.’
‘What did the man do?’ I ask. I absolutely loathe that kind of behaviour: men thinking they can use their fists on a woman because she doesn’t conform to their way of thinking. It’s barbaric, no better than cavemen.
‘Oh, it wasn’t a man doing the beating, it was a woman,’ Woody says, remembering. ‘She – apologies for my language, ladies – but she beat the shit out of him. The ambulance took him to hospital and everything.’
‘Did he press charges?’ Jake asks.
Woody shakes his head. ‘Nope. He was too embarrassed that his wife had done that to him to take it further.’
‘That’s terrible,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘If anyone tried anything like that with me, I wouldn’t hesitate to ring the police.’
‘You don’t know that, Poppy,’ Amber says quietly. ‘You don’t know until you’re in that position.’
‘Oh, I know all right, I —’
‘No, youdon’t!’ I’m surprised by Amber’s tone. ‘Youdon’t know, Poppy, but I do.’ She looks around the table and lowers her voice. ‘I know exactly how it feels because I’ve been there. I’ve been beaten. And by my own husband too.’
We all sit around the table shocked into silence by Amber’s admission.
‘When, Amber? When did this happen?’ I’m the first to ask. I just can’t believe this. I’m shocked not only by Amber’s story, but by the fact I didn’t even know she was married.
Amber looks up from where she’s been staring at the table, and instead of the usually bright, bubbly, confident Amber, I see a vulnerable, scared young woman.
‘It’s been happening on and off since we got married about two years ago. Not many people know. Ray, my husband, is highly regarded in the business world in New York. But behind the scenes he’s into all sorts of shady dealings. He knows how to hide anything he doesn’t want the world to know about – including a beaten wife.’
I see Woody bristle.
‘Did my mother know?’ I ask, piecing everything together.
‘Yes,’ says Amber. ‘I started to miss days off work, and then when I did come in I couldn’t hide my bruises well enough to fool her. She was great with me though, let me stay at her place until I got back on my feet. And she helped me find a new apartment too.’
I feel a rush of love for my mother well up inside me.
‘That’s how I got into this new spiritual way of life. I met some people in my apartment block and they started telling me their beliefs and it all made sense to me. I was happy for the first time in ages. Everything was going great until Ray found out where I was. He tried to get me to move back home, but I refused. Like I said before, Ray has some shady connections, so I was scared of what he might do. When I told your mom, she suggested I come here to get away from everything for a while.’
I’m aware we’re all staring at Amber in a mixture of amazement and horror.
Of all the things I thought Amber might have kept hidden, a violent marriage wasn’t one of them. Amber was so confident, how could this have happened to her? And how had she managed to get over it and rediscover the ability to be so happy and positive about life?
‘Are you safe here?’ Jake asks with concern. ‘Can your husband find you?’
‘On his way to being an ex-husband, thank goodness.’ Amber shakes her head. ‘No, Poppy’s mom said she’d tell them I’d run away, and she had no idea where I was. And that’s what I have done in a way: run away from my problems instead of confronting them.’
‘No, you haven’t done that,’ I insist, sitting down next to her and putting my hand over hers on the table. I knew better than anyone what it was to run away from what was bothering you. ‘You’ve done the brave thing. You’ve stood up to him by making your own way in the world, and I for one am glad you did. I’d be lost without you in our little shop. I’m so pleased you came here.’
‘Me too!’ Woody insists, making a very un-Woody move by taking Amber’s other hand in his.
