Don’t know what to say. Yesterday I brought her here with a bloody face, shocked and trembling. “Never again,” she said. And now she’s gone--gone back to him, with him. “He said he’ll change,” she said. I looked at her. “Do you believe him?” “No.”

She’d called in the afternoon. She was sobbing; she could hardly put words together. “He’s beaten me up. I can’t walk. I took the baby and ran. I don’t know where to go.”

Twenty minutes later we picked her up. She fell in my arms, her face covered with blood. “He’s pinned me down and banged my head against the floor,” she said.

I’ve heard before that they had “fights.” That didn’t sound good, but didn’t sound so scary, either. I believed it was mutual--more like a game, something siblings would do. And he’s such a nice guy. An educated businessman, charming and polite. He’s a good friend. He was?

In our bathroom I looked as she washed blood off her face. I watched the red marks on her neck. Her lips were swollen; he’d held his hand against her mouth to keep her quiet. She’d screamed for help, without result.

We bought some things for the baby; too little--I didn’t know and she was too shocked to think straight, as I later realized. Didn’t even get a pacifier.

By that time he started calling her cell phone. Asking why she’d run out. Telling her to come home. She switched the phone off.

The doctor came, inspected the bruises on her body and produced a little statement. For the future, in case she’ll need it when she starts to fight for the custody of the child. “But you’ll need a police statement, too,” he said.

The baby must have sensed something; the boy spend almost the entire night screaming. She cried, too, hurt and tired, and I circled around them trying to be helpful but feeling useless. The boy was getting tantrums the moment he lost sight of her--as though afraid she too might disappear. She spent the night walking with the baby, crying, barely able to move her legs.

This morning she was better--a bit. She’s even had a snack, though her lips were still too bruised to bite. Then he called--not her cell phone, but ours. He’s figured out where she was, and we didn’t lie. Moments later he arrived. We let them talk in private, listening for any signs of violence.

They talked but did not shout. She cried. They appeared some half an hour later, and she let him take the baby for a walk. (He wouldn’t hurt the child so safety wasn’t an issue). When he came back, they talked again.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said, walking into my office. “I want the best for my child.”

How can you help someone decide? You can’t make them break a relationship; the decision has to be theirs and theirs alone. All you can do is offer support, the best advice and a place to stay.

She’s just left--decided to go home with him. Why? I don’t think she believes he’ll change. She isn’t dependent, either--her job is as good as his; she has what she needs to make it on her own. Why did she leave, then?

She’s a daughter of a single mother; she grew up hearing how hard it was for her mother. She grew up hearing it’d have been better if she had never been born. Was she worried of the future she’d be giving her son?

Or was she just too tired, too weak and too exhausted to make a decision, any decision? Going back could have seemed like giving herself more time, delaying the choice. She can leave again tomorrow, after all. At least so it seems to her.

Or does she still love him, against everything?

I’ve asked her to call if she needs me. I’ll go see her tomorrow. Things will return to “normal,” whatever that means. And I will always wonder why--for him and for her.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. These things happen. Still, I don’t understand.