Call her Miranda. It isn't her real name but an alias utilized to protect her from the homicidal madness of an ex-husband who may be stalking her even now, armed with a knife.
She's a petite, attractive woman of 53, not at all a threatening person, either by size or inclination. She had been married to the same man for 24 years until the marriage unraveled on an evening that left her in terror.
Now, like a child in the forest being trailed by a wolf, she is haunted by that terror.
I met her where she worked, and I will similarly not disclose that locale to hide her from the man we will call Max. Recognizing me from the photograph atop my column, she came up to me, stood for a moment and then asked, "Would you hear my story?"
She talked about the early years of her marriage and what a gentle, loving person Max had once been. "He worked hard at his job, doted on our two children and was as peaceful and kind as any man could possibly be," Miranda said. "Then things began to change."
She can't recall exactly when Max started exhibiting peculiar behavior. Little things were beginning to annoy him. A crying baby or a barking dog could anger him. Not being able to find his shoes in the morning could infuriate him.
"He had many friends at first," Miranda recalled, "and then began alienating them by insulting or avoiding them and eventually having nothing to do with anyone. He withdrew into himself. He had never been a drinker
but became one."
The unexplainable shift in his behavior eventually cost Max his job. The darkness in his nature increased, and his anger flared to a condition of constant rage. Miranda had no idea what was happening. She tried talking to him about it, but he would have nothing to do with the conversation.
Then one evening as Miranda was urging him to seek counseling, Max exploded. He slammed her against a wall, grabbed a kitchen knife and held it against her throat. "He was going to kill me," Miranda said in a tight whisper. "I was terrified he would murder me and then our children."
She was able to calm Max down by agreeing with everything he said, his knife pressed against her throat. Later that evening, she managed to get out of the house and call the police. Max was arrested, convicted of threatening Miranda's life and served four years in prison.
"He's out now," Miranda said to me, her eyes betraying the depth of her fear, "and I don't know what he might do." Then she was gone, to face alone the shadows of her fear.
I don't know that I will ever see her again, but I think of her a lot and wish for her safety, even though the rest of her life will be that of the child being stalked by a wolf. One hopes that the wolf will never find her.
Al Martinez writes a column on Mondays and Fridays.