Reading Response 2: Eyes of a Child

I enjoy reading books that follow a character through the events that have happened during a stressful time in their life. The main character, Terri, is going through a divorce and a custody battle. Her soon to be ex-husband, Richard, is basically a stay at home dad and lives off of Terri. Without her he has nothing so of course he uses that against her in court. He even uses the fact that he is a stay at home dad against her. She is a lawyer so she was not home a lot, but enough to be a great mother. Terri begins seeing her boss named Chris. This shakes Richard to the core and causes him to want to tear Terri's life apart.

Richard frequently uses their daughter Elena against Terri and says that her relationship with Chris is affecting Elena's behavior. Now, Terri only gets to see her daughter on the weekends and has to pay all of Richard's expenses. Richard does not work, because he has a great difficulty of working under people. When Terri got pregnant, he had her go back to law should to get a higher degree that will better take care of the family.

As of now, Richard has not been getting his way money wise. Since he is not getting what he wants, he plans to take Elena away from Terri at any cost. Richard accused Chris's son, Carlo, of molesting their daughter. Richard can not have Terri so he is trying his best to isolate her. He has taken this too far, but getting the children involved, but that is the least of his worried. Terri wishes that he was dead. He was never no good anyway. He was abusive, not supportive, and extremely jealous of Terri.

"Whether you hit me or not, I'm leaving. And if you do hit me, I'll make sure it's the last time you'll ever hit anyone."

 He stared at her, and then anger became another expression---embarrassment, exposure. His hand dropped to his side.

Don't let him see your fear, Terri told herself. She knew that this was not over; with Richie, things were never over until he won.

In that scene, Terri had finally stood up for herself and found the confidence to finally leave him. She knew that she had started a war, but it was all worth it to her if she did not have to be abused anymore.

In this picture I see a women putting on a fake smile, a soft spoken man that puts on a front and likes to be seen as the loving one (holding onto the child), and a little girl who is just trying to be happy and not aware of the crossfires between her parents. This is how I picture Terri, Richard, and Elena.