She finally calls

After almost a month of silence from the Texas singer, I got a call at 11:37 p.m. I didn't recognize the number, and was actually surprised to her voice. She received a call from the process server, that she said was professional, but still came across threatening, and wanted to verify that the man really was employed on my behalf. After expressing her concerns that I was speaking to Raoul still, she emphatically implored me to remove her name from the blog. She continued with how it wasn't fair to her, that she was a victim too, it was all a nightmare...she needed a break from it... I tried to convey my thoughts on her request, which, honestly...was not pleasant, but couldn't seem to get through without her taking over the conversation. My patience wore...

Finally, she finished presenting her case, and actually implied there would be a time line she'd impose. I asked plainly what the alternative was. She then said she'd no other recourse but to asked politely. I softened at her response. Although it's painfully clear we are all victims in this situation, I had a lot of trouble finding empathy for her plea. I said I would try to go and change it on the blog, but honestly didn't even know how to yet (which was true, but I didn't even really want to at this point). I could hear her burst into tears when her mother took the phone. She spoke to me in Spanish, which I am not completely fluent in, but I understood most.

She appealed to me as a mother, and gave several mitigating circumstances that prevented her daughter from getting back to me. My patience grew even thinner as I remembered how the singer promised to send a witness statement, and to send other things...among them his laptop computer that she found very strange things on...but I waited and waited for nothing. No witness statement was ever FedExed, no package ever came. I checked. I waited. I checked again...

Nothing.

My hopes had been dashed. The only person who actually saw the same thing as I: a man full of lies and cruelty...the only woman I knew of that could truly testify that I am not crazy, testify that this man is crazy, the only person I believed held the key to the safety of my children...simply disappeared.

I remembered my cousin's anger when asking about her, and Cindy's sharp words about how selfish this woman was to turn her back on us. I remembered the disappointment in Ericka's young, expectant eyes when I tried to explain that the young woman had a career to protect while I tried to hide my own deep, gnawing fear that I'd show up in court and be made a fool of...

Her mother implored me...No merecemos esta situacion, Somos unas personas decentes... (we don't deserve these circumstances, we are decent/good people). She said that Sebastian (Raoul) used the most dangerous weapon of all, love. She begged me as a mother, quita el nombre de ella del internet (take her name off the internet). At some point I began to cry. I apologized a number of times that they had to suffer, that all of us were in pain.

She was right to take the tack of a mom. I truly understand how miserable it is to see my own daughter cry, and couldn't hold to the hardness in my heart. Before relenting, however, I firmly explained how I believed it was wrong to say you are going to do something and not follow through. It is very important to see that there is a world of problems much larger than a young girl who wants to sing. I straight out called her selfish. I have a baby here, and his father isn't right...something very serious is happening. I need your help! I asked them to please never force me to get a subpoena, spending so much money and effort to force them to help. If she had followed through, maybe I would have never felt the need to go so far?

After talking to her mom, I asked to speak to the singer again. This time, we both put our defenses down. She shared her earnest pain, and she listened. I probably spoke too much this time. But I realized that in her world, this is a shattering experience, too. I felt compassion for her. There were lots of excuses on why she made her choices, but in the end, she is only in her early twenties. Would I really have done differently at that age? I can see how someone who could, would simply walk away and start anew.

I, however, wake every morning to the 24/7 reminder: This tender life that God has entrusted to me, my baby boy, who needs me to be strong enough to protect him from even the unseen, protect him from the horrible things my other children could not avoid, and he needs me to be strong enough not simply to ask for help, not simply to press others for help...

but to demand it.