A pregnant neighbor knocked late at night, crying. It was nearly eleven, and the rain was hammering against the windows of our suburban home in Georgia. When I opened the door, there stood Ivy, a sweet girl from three doors down who had moved in just six months ago. She was drenched to the bone, clutching a small canvas bag, her eyes red and swollen from crying. She told me her husband, a man who always seemed a bit too quiet and stern for my liking, had kicked her out after a heated argument about finances.
I started to lead her into the warmth of the hallway, but my husband, Greg, appeared at the top of the stairs, his face like thunder. He didn’t offer a towel or a glass of water; he didn’t even ask if she was okay. Instead, he gripped the banister and looked at Ivy with a coldness that made my skin crawl. “We aren’t a shelter, Ivy,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “Go back to your man and obey him, and maybe you wouldn’t be standing in the rain.”