A couple of weeks later my father received a notice to meet with my mother and her lawyer. Wisely, my father also retained an attorney. She demanded half of the house, the cars, half of my father’s business, alimony and funding for her college education. She did not volunteer to help with Carole’s education or support her in any way. Since I would earn my college diploma in only a few months, she was justified in not shouldering responsibility for me. She left Carole with my father and his diminished livelihood. Neither Carole nor I regretted our mother’s departure. However, we objected to how she chose to leave. It seemed underhanded and irresponsible.
For spring break, Mohammed invited me to go to the Silicon Valley to meet some of his friends from undergraduate school. Since I lived independently and my mother could not restrict my activities, I agreed immediately to the extended weekend. Interspersed with various dinners and lunches, Mohammed took me to an ice arena. Since I had not owned ice skates since early childhood, we both rented a pair. I never expected to go skating, so I had not brought any skating clothes. Therefore, I wore jeans and a polo shirt on the ice. As a child, I did not mind wearing a leotard with rented ice skates, but my maturing sensibilities told me this looked tacky.
Stepping onto the rink, the dull rental blades slid smoothly over the lightly worn ice. Accustomed to flimsy boots, the rental leather seemed no less adequate than the cheap roller skates I used for commuting through the park to campus. I skated side-by-side with handsome Mohammed until my body adjusted to the sensation of gliding over ice rather than rolling on asphalt. I felt proud skating with my boyfriend who wanted to show me off to the people in his life. I believed this step was leading to a marriage proposal and my opportunity to become a “magazine bride”. Mohammed rarely skated but did not look foolish or awkward like many adult beginners. Sophistication permeated all of his activities. He seemed as at home skating recreationally as he was discussing behavioral psychology with other scholars. Mohammed believed he must be prepared to interact with people to his best advantage in any situation. No one would ever mistake him for a klutz at a public session.
Mesmerized by the sensation of gliding effortlessly, my body began to flow as it did on roller skates. I skated forward swiftly. Without contemplation, I turned a mohawk to begin backward crossovers around the end of the rink. Anticipating a set of four wheels under my feet, I place my right foot down to affect the turn. However, the base of the skate fell away rather than catching the surface with the wheels muscle memory expected. Four wheels provide a large foundation for balance in a traditional roller skate. Only a narrow blade, less than a quarter inch wide, provides the actually surface of contact between an ice skater and the ice. In most cases, ice skaters balance on vanishingly narrow edges. I expected chunky wheels under my feet, but I got a centered blade whose placement was inconsistent with how I planned to balance through the mohawk turn. Realizing the differences between ice and roller skates, I collapsed in surprise and slid indelicately on my backside.
"What were you trying to do?” Mohammed asked, slightly embarrassed as he reached a hand toward me to lift me quickly off the ice.
“I was just going to skate backwards.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t try anything fancy,” he suggested looking around to determine if anyone was staring at his clumsy companion who was too mature to be sliding around on her buttocks like a small child.
That ended my supposedly “fancy” skating. After years of sporadic artistic roller skating, I had forgotten the subtlety of gliding on ice. I wanted to skate for the rest of the day, experimenting with turns and stroking. I might even try to spin or leap. After my graceless fall, Mohammed hustled me off the ice explaining that we had to make another stop before going to dinner with the family who hosted him as a high school exchange student. When Mohammed parked in front of a dress shop, I was perplexed.
“I hate to tell you this, Katherine, but I prefer that you not wear that loud orange blouse tonight.”
“But I designed that blouse myself,” I protested meekly.
“Yes, and it is probably fine for a college fashion show, but I would like you to look your best. These people are very important to me. I want you to make a good impression,” his clear but determined voice explained.
Tears stung my eyes and I looked away from Mohammed struggling to contain my humiliation. I tried to accept his constructive criticism by understanding how difficult it must have been for Mohammed to object to his beloved’s designs. I selected a basic white polyester blouse from the clearance rack at the back of the store assuming it could be recycled for job interviews. Mohammed approached me holding an elegant silk creation. I looked at the tag and quickly told him that I could not afford it. Mohammed insisted the silk blouse was better quality and I should spend the extra money. This erupted into an argument. Mohammed accused me of being cheap and stubborn. Maybe he assumed I could charge whatever I wanted on daddy’s credit card, like so many other American college girls. However, I worked for every penny in my bank account and could not afford many luxuries.
Offended and hot with frustration, I formed an analogy, “A Rolls Royce may be the best car money can buy, but I can only pay for a used Plymouth.”
Mohammed shunned my foolishness claiming the two examples were not comparable. I told him if he wanted me to wear silk, he would have to buy it. We finally left the store with the discounted polyester blouse.
As Mohammed and I spent more time together, I discovered his annoying penchant for arguing. Arguing with Mohammed was not like arguing with a rational human being. No matter the circumstances, Mohammed believed he was always right. He would not listen to another point of view or recognize the validity of another individual’s opinion. He wanted his influence to dominate our relationship. As the female, he expected me to accept whatever he said as an absolute and irrefutable truth. My thought process should submit to his. He became vicious and resorted to cruel insults and damaging accusations to distract me from my position. Disagreeing with Mohammed was like disagreeing with my mother. She utilized any despicable tactic to emerge victorious. Mohammed used the same strategy. After freeing myself from her influence, I found myself oppressed by a similar personality.
Many psychologists and counselors theorize that people subconsciously settle into relationships with others who are similar to their parents, even if their parents were abusive. I endured Mohammed’s nastiness even though I knew this was not the only way a man could treat a woman. Neither Devin nor Jonathan behaved this way, although we occasionally disagreed. Not only did Mohammed’s conduct duplicate how my mother treated me as a child, it also resembled how she manipulated my father. Because I was involved in a romantic relationship with Mohammed and believed that I loved him, I made excuses for him first to myself and later to other people. After every unbecoming incident, Mohammed begged me to forgive him. He declared his love and said he could not live without me. He often brought me flowers or other small gifts to demonstrate his sincerity. True to the abuse model, I accepted his apology and gave him the opportunity to hurt me again.
“Mohammed has obviously never worked in a bridal shop.”
I was often glad to get away from Mohammed or not to have plans for the evening with him. I developed a friendship with my roommates and attempted to cram an entire four years of typical college life into the one semester I shared an apartment with them. However, I did not share the girls’ carefree attitude. Mohammed’s cutting remarks and foul temper had made me paranoid. One evening I thought I saw his car in the parking lot of my building. Trying to dismiss my suspicions, I assumed someone in the complex merely owned the same model. I saw the car often and decided it belonged to one of the tenants.
Upon returning from the grocery store with my roommates, I received a phone call from Mohammed. He immediately accused me of going out with the girls to meet men. When I asked where he got such a ridiculous idea he admitted that he stopped by the complex to surprise me but saw me leaving with my friends. He had not loitered long enough to know we came back with a trunk full of grocery bags. After I finally hung up the phone, I went outside to discover the mysterious car was not in its usual place near the dumpster. The horrible reality dawned on me that Mohammed had been sitting in his car almost every night monitoring my apartment.
Frightened, I told Mohammed the next day that I could not continue to see him. What I thought was a romantic relationship had deteriorated into a nightmare. Mohammed erupted in anger saying I just wanted to sleep with other men. I tried to remain calm and explained that this situation was no longer healthy for either one of us. He did not trust me and I could not tolerate his suspicious nature. He insisted that I must accompany him to several engagements including the wedding of one of his friends, a dinner for psychology graduate students, a professional conference, and Dr. Huang’s annual graduation party. When I objected to dating him anymore regardless of the occasion, Mohammed threatened to file a complaint with the psychology department stating that I had cheated on an examination and plagiarized my term paper.
Of course, I had never done these things in the psychology class or any other course I had taken, but I was afraid of the investigation that might postpone my graduation or prevent me from marching in the ceremony. Word of the investigation would undoubtedly spread throughout the campus, creating gossip and possibly souring my reputation with the Fashion and Textiles Department. Only a couple of months from a Bachelor of Science degree, I feared Mohammed’s influence with Dr. Huang. I had loved Mohammed even as I told him that I could not continue our relationship. However, his hideous threat destroyed any memory of the pleasant times we shared. With tears streaming down my face, I agreed to accompany him to the events he named if he would not accuse me of academic dishonesty.
Mohammed did not need me on his arm. With his charm and good looks, he could easily find another date. He devised this method to punish me for wanting to end our relationship. He had come to view me as a possession and I severely bruised his ego by demonstrating self-esteem and rejecting his abuse. Spying outside my apartment suggested that Mohammed was not a mentally stable person. He had become obsessed with me and despised the idea of losing the object of his fascination. Mohammed may have actually loved me, in his demented way, but could not control his actions. He never would have fathomed that he had a problem or that his conduct had been less than virtuous.
Most universities maintain policies forbidding graduate students from developing romantic relationships with subordinate pupils. Although Dr. Huang taught my psychology class, he delegated the task of grading some of our work to his protégé. Mohammed should not have initiated a romance with me or any other student associated with Dr. Huang. There were probably numerous tactics I could have taken to diffuse Mohammed’s blackmail. Intimidated and naïve, I played along planning to dump him permanently as soon as the Postal Service delivered my diploma.
My graduation should have been a happier experience, but Mohammed’s menacing cloud hung over the sunny late afternoon ceremony. After struggling for four years to maintain good grades while working and dealing with family problems, commencement should have been the most delightful day of my life. As I shook the dean’s hand, I could only think of the genuine diploma that would be in the mail as soon as final grades were posted and I officially passed all of my classes. Until then, I had to go to a wedding with Mohammed and face my mother telling me how proud she was of me when I knew she really was not. I clutched the bogus rolled souvenir and halfheartedly tossed my mortar board cap into the air.
When my father returned from Wisconsin, we discovered the extent of my mother’s damage. She premeditated her departure by systematically transferring money from their joint accounts to new accounts in her own name. By depleting much of my father’s liquid assets, she nearly crippled his contracting business. After spending over twenty years with his wife, her leaving in this manner was an insult. While much of their marriage had not been joyous, they both spoke fondly of their initial years together when Carole and I were young. To honor the memory of those years, she should have tried to arrange an equitable settlement. Instead, my mother guaranteed a measure of financial security by taking whatever she thought she might need.
After the spring fashion show, Mohammed embarrassed me in front of my professors and fellow students. Still wearing my original creation, Mohammed commented that I should have modeled something more appropriate in the show as no decent, self-respecting woman would wear an off-the-shoulder gown for her wedding. I laughed heartily to dispel the concerned expressions forming on the faces of my associates.
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