Her Voice

by Rosemary Williams

Image credit: Amin Hasani on Unsplash

Early one morning, her beloved husband brought a cup of coffee to her in bed. “Surprise!” he said. The real surprise was that that was the day he started drinking in the morning. He poured coffee for her and vodka for himself. She thought he had become the husband she dreamt about, but no, he thought first my vodka, then your coffee. She deluded herself believing he was being kind. No, he planned to keep her out of the kitchen while he drank.

This behavior crept into his life. Actions that she assumed meant one thing really meant another. What she thought she understood was not what was actually happening.

She learned alcoholism is a disease of delusion and everyone suffers.

In the early 1980s, after twenty-three years of marriage, she knew she had to separate or divorce and told her husband. He promptly hired and fired all the best local attorneys, eliminating them from her use. She felt challenged by her Catholic conscience, the reality of supporting and raising five children alone, and the fact that she still loved her husband.

She wanted to divorce quietly and hesitated to move ahead because she feared her friends would not stand by her, but would criticize and try to convince her to abandon the idea of divorce. A close friend had told her, “Stay a little longer; maybe something will change.” Another said, “Try to ignore the things that upset you.”

Can you ignore a man in a bathrobe, passed out, lying on the den floor while five little children waving tiny flags are walking in a circle around him, singing, I love a parade?

That was the day she knew the time had come to leave. The situation was impossible to ignore.

Alcoholism was destroying her husband, and the effects on the children were disturbing.

*

In the middle of the first lawyer interview, she asked a question. “I know my husband has hidden his assets. How will your investigation track down the missing money and property?”

“Don’t you worry, beautiful, you’ll find another husband in short order.”

His dismissive attitude ended the interview for her. She knew he wouldn’t protect her and her five children. Without explaining, she stood up, smiled, walked towards the door, and said, “Thank you for your time.”

Anger settled in her throat where her words were stuck. Her shoulders tightened as she walked to her car behind the building.  She pulled out of the parking space and headed down the single-lane driveway when a car turned in. The man behind the wheel signaled to her to back up. She did not. Instead, she signaled back up. He put his head out the window and yelled, “Back up.” She shook her head no. He kept coming, surprised that she was not yielding to him.  Empowered by the anger ignited in the attorney’s office, she quietly held her ground. When it became clear she wouldn’t move, the driver shouted a string of expletives…Sitting there in his grey business suit, driving his big black Cadillac, he screamed, “F…you, you stupid bitch, I hope you burn in hell.”

For the first time, she noticed a quiet power, her power, as she watched him back up. She hadn’t backed down. She’d held her ground. A drum roll played in her mind, and she heard the words of Helen Reddy’s song.

            I am woman, hear me roar           

In numbers too big to ignore           

And I know too much to go back an' pretend     

After an excruciating two-year process, she finally divorced, all the while

quietly singing Helen’s song in her mind and even dancing to the music. On the last day of the divorce hearing, three women friends, the supportive ones, came to the courtroom and sat in the front row. They took her out when the judge called for a lunch break and returned to sit until the end of the proceedings.  In a bleak, unpretentious ending to the marriage, the judge signed the divorce decree.

*

She had to go back to work. Despite not being in the business world for years, her previous experience as a statistician and a financial planner put her in a position for a mid-level bank job, her own office, and a secretary. The office, bright and sunny, in the corner of the bank’s branch building, had bookshelves behind a big desk, and two armchairs in front of the desk for clients. Wow! She felt like she’d slipped through an Alice-In-Wonderland hole in the universe that took her out of the kitchen and into the bank.

In her new job, she met many married women customers who had no credit history and owned no real property. Ann, her first woman client, came into her office to complain that her husband always maxed out his credit card, and when she tried to charge an item or the groceries, she was refused credit. Ann filled out her application for her own credit card only to learn that she had no credit history and owned no assets in her own name. Her application was denied. Even though the Equal Credit Opportunity Act had been passed in 1974, it was not actively implemented.

She learned this situation existed for many of the women in the community who had no borrowing history and no personal assets. Their credit cards were auxiliary cards on their husband’s accounts. The women knew little about their family finances and needed to learn.

MaryAnn used her new voice to change this situation by appealing to the bank’s drive for profit and more business. She repeatedly told senior management, “To expand our customer base, we must provide financial education for women.”

Early one morning, she was sitting in her office, drafting her not-yet-approved plan for the women’s financial education program, when the phone rang. She had just written the words DEMYSTIFYING MONEY on her yellow pad. She answered the phone and heard the bank president say, “I have decided to support your idea for a women’s financial education program. You may use the executive conference room for your meetings and the executive dining room for lunch, which will be served to all.”

Stunned, she gasped for enough air to say, “Thank you so much. I named the program Demystifying Money.”

He replied, “Nice. Do you think you can do that?”

She said, “I’ll certainly try. Will you welcome the women at the first session?”

“Of course.”

With management's encouragement, she scheduled the workshops, prepared sample ad copy for the local papers, and created workbooks for the women. Ann, the first woman to register in the program, invited all her friends, and they invited friends. The first workshop quickly filled to capacity and then the word spread.

She felt like dancing as she entered the wood-paneled conference room where she would lead the first session. As her assistant placed workshop materials on every seat, she imagined the faces of the women who would soon arrive.

Yes, I am wise

But it is wisdom born of pain

Yes, I've paid the price

But look how much I've gained.

*

A few years later, on I-95, after she had started her own financial planning business, she was driving to Cape Cod for a weekend with friends and enthusiastically singing out loud, I Am Woman when a police car behind her, turned on flashers and a siren. She pulled over. The policeman drove alongside her car, opened his window, and said, “Why are you yelling at me?”

“Yelling at you, I’m not yelling at you. I’m singing.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m the best I’ve ever been.”

As she drove away, she sang even more exuberantly than before, I am woman, hear me roar.  

Image credit: Taylor Wright on Unsplash

***

Rosemary Williams

Rosemary Williams is the founder and Executive Director of Women’s Perspective, an Interfaith Minister, a Millionth Circle convener, former banker, financial planner, and delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. She is the author of The Women’s Book on Money and Spiritual Vision and Economic Empowerment Training for Women.