A Lifeline in the Darkest Hours

In February, Rose found herself at a police station with her young daughter in tow after a domestic abuse incident, confused, scared, and unsure what next steps to take. A social worker at the police station told Rose she could seek counseling, but Rose envisioned a scary gym filled with drug addicts and cots.

“I don’t want to go to that place!” she said she thought at the time, and she resisted calling any of the hotlines the social worker told her about. But the abuse escalated to the point where Rose believed her daughter’s father might kill her.

“I didn’t think I was going to make it,” she said, but she depended on him and found it difficult to leave. They had been together for a decade and he took care of the finances. When she finally realized she wanted to start her life over, the Retreat in East Hampton was the first number she dialed.

The woman who answered the phone patiently explained that things would be okay. Her calm and soothing tone eased Rose’s fear about seeking help. A taxi came to pick her up the next day to take her to the shelter, over an hour from her house. Rose and other Retreat clients interviewed for this article asked that their last names not be used.

To Rose’s relief, her taxi trip ended not at a cold warehouse with wandering junkies, but at a homey, one-story house with a small vegetable garden. The shelter has 18 beds and clients can stay 90 days. The Retreat offers other services aside from the shelter, including a transitional housing program, legal advocacy so victims can be accompanied to court, and educational programs for men and teenagers. It serves about 500 clients every year, who come to it mainly via police notifications and the hotline.

Another former client, Amy, attended meetings with her counselor every Monday at an undisclosed location for three years. At the time, in 2008, she had two toddlers and was financially dependent on her husband. They owned a Lexus, a BMW, and a nice house. After a house call, though, a suspicious police officer slipped her a card for the Retreat. She filed it away, thinking, “That’s for people who aren’t educated or have no money or aren’t strong enough to get through this.” But later she did call. The program provided her with an attorney who fought for full custody of her children.

“It felt like I had just won the lottery,” she said.

When Rose arrived at the shelter, she quickly became friends with Minerva Perez, the former shelter director who left earlier this summer. Ms. Perez turned into a mentor, often consoling Rose and taking the time to talk through her fears and anxieties.

Two days after her arrival, the staff bought cake, balloons, and snacks and held a party for Rose’s daughter. The staff showered Amy with presents as well. They bought her a Thanksgiving turkey and on Dec. 23 one year called her to come to the shelter; they had a surprise. There she found a 1986 red Ford Explorer waiting for her.

“It was my ticket to freedom,” she said.

There is both structured and unstructured time at the shelter. Rose fell into a routine, waking up at 7 a.m., an unheard of hour for her, and going to sleep 12 hours later. She looked for a job every weekday, a task that was supervised by staff. Weekends were for relaxing.

But times were not always happy and easy-going. Sometimes she would awake in the middle of the night from nightmares that her abuser was trying to murder her.

Then, shortly after her arrival, Rose’s daughter came down with a cold. There was a harsh snowstorm outside. The heat was not working at the shelter. Rose began to feel homesick and yearned for her own bed. She said she felt trapped at the Retreat. So she packed her belongings in an act of desperation. But the trains were not running and no cabs would drive her back home. Ms. Perez arrived to calm her down and she unpacked her belongings and waited out the difficult time.

Other tedious tasks nagged her.

“I’m not going to lie, I hated it at times,” she said. Part of the healing process at the Retreat is to take part in mandatory sessions, like counseling, group therapy, and legal advocacy information meetings, and to share chores with the other women, including cleaning the bathroom and cooking meals.

Rose did not look forward to the counseling sessions. One entailed writing down every bad memory on a piece of paper. The women went outside with their scribbled thoughts and were told to burn the scraps in order to let go of the pain. Another exercise included field-tripping down to the beach, picking up a rock, remembering the negative times while holding it, and then releasing it.

But, after her 90 days were up, Rose had grown attached and found a new dependency on her temporary home. She felt scared to re-enter the world and clung to Ms. Perez. The unknown whereabouts of her abuser terrified her and she had no clue where she would go first once she left. She pleaded for the staff to extend her stay.

She remembers Ms. Perez telling her, “ ‘If I let you stay here, it will be a crutch. I believe you can do it.’ ”

And she did do it. Now just several months later, Rose is juggling several jobs and has found an apartment.

“I’m not where I want to be, but I’m not where I used to be,” she said.