Jennifer McPhee
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 08/01) - Almost one month ago, I followed the sound of a police siren to the Fraser Arms West apartment building. After several minutes, a distraught woman in her nightclothes was led out of the building by police.

"Each of the 17 women staying at the centre had a story that would make you cringe."

Bruised and sobbing uncontrollably, she repeatedly said, "I'm sorry." After the police car took her away, her common-law husband was carried into an ambulance on a stretcher. He was bleeding from the chest. The next day, the woman was charged with assault with a weapon.

Over the next few weeks, I found it hard to put that scene --especially my memory of the woman -- entirely out of my mind. It's one of the reasons I decided to spend a night at the Yellowknife Women's Centre emergency shelter. I was also there to investigate what the centre is really like, after writing an article about a former employee who claims the rules are too lenient.

When I arrived around 10 p.m. on Saturday, four women were lounging comfortably on couches in the common area, watching, of all things, a football game. "There have to be men somewhere," one of them joked. Someone had made popcorn. The atmosphere was so relaxed and the women seemed so easy in each other's company that I felt like I'd dropped in on bunch of grown women at a sleepover party.

But I quickly learned that was not the case. In fact, each of the 17 women staying at the centre tonight had a story that would make you cringe. In order to protect the identity of the women in this article, all names have been changed.

Ruth arrived just before midnight. She was a tiny, delicate-looking woman with long black hair. Her nose was full of dried blood, there was more on her flowered dress and her eye was purple and swollen. She was intoxicated and sat with her head down, sobbing. It wasn't her first time here and it likely wouldn't be her last. She cried like she knows this.

There were scars on her face caused by fists and knives -- permanent reminders of other abusive relationships. She wouldn't say who hit her this time and she said she wouldn't be pressing charges. She does, however, mention that it's her birthday.

Margaret Beauchamp, the shelter's co-ordinator, comforted her softly, put her into bed and checked on her periodically throughout the night.

At least five women drifted into the centre while I slept on the couch. Some had their own rooms, some slept in a room lined with mattresses, and others crashed on the couch or on the floor in the common area. I didn't see any women drinking, although at least two were intoxicated. One woman told me she'd talk to me in the morning. "I feel too sick right now from drinking," she said, putting her finger to lips. "But, shhh."

When I awoke, several women were eating breakfast and a few were watching -- of all things -- a baseball game. Ruth was awake, and smiling. "I went for a walk and I feel better, " she said.

Is she angry at whoever did this to her?

She seemed perplexed by the question. "No, not angry," she said. "What's the point?"

I talk to some of the other women. One was at the shelter to escape her stalker. Another told me in a soft voice that her sister attacked her last night. She had tiny, deep cuts all over her face and her neck is injured.

I asked another woman why she's staying here. Her voice became angry. "What kind of a question is that?" she snapped. "I have no home, that's why I'm here." Then she calms down and adds: "We all take care of each other here. Now that I think of it, all we have is each other."

I ask the women to let me photograph them. Understandably, all of them decline except for one. "I don't mind," said a woman who had been sitting in the kitchen so unobtrusively that I have barely noticed her. And it's only when she begins telling me her story that I realize she's the woman from the Fraser Arms West apartment building.

Lynne and her boyfriend, Scott, had been living together for exactly six months. The six-month mark meant they were officially common-law and they were celebrating when things got out of hand that night.

It may be hard to imagine, but Lynne has never been in a non-abusive relationship. Her parents drank, and she often witnessed her father beating her mother. As a child, she was sexually abused by a relative. One of her boyfriends tried to smother her in her sleep. "I've been engaged to be married three times," she said. "I believe I left at the right time, otherwise I wouldn't be here right now."

She tells me in her gentle, polite voice that she has a lot of unresolved anger and has used alcohol and drugs to suppress it for years.

"I'm a binge-drinker," she said. "I've been that way most my life."

She was drinking the night of the incident. She blames their problems on mounting financial pressure and alcohol.

"We did real good when we didn't drink," she said. And, she admitted, she often acted jealous around him because of other women.

But she makes it clear that Scott did not hit her that night. "All I remember is getting very angry. I still think about him and wonder how he is. Hopefully, one day he'll forgive me. I'm still in shock over it. I can't forgive myself."

She stops once for a few minutes to cry.

After the incident, she was evicted from their apartment and moved to the women's centre. She's now in counselling and is starting a detox program tomorrow. "I feel really good about it," she said. "It's a great opportunity to get all the stuff out that I've been keeping in with drugs and alcohol."

The women's centre also helped find her a job. "I'm looking forward to getting paid next week, so for once I can spend it on my children, instead of on drinking."

"I've been doing so much thinking since this happened. I've hit rock bottom before, but I've never done anything so terrible... . Just thinking that he could have died. I think life is so special. There are a lot of good things in life."

And as I say goodbye to Lynne and the other women and walk out the door, I'm thinking that among those good things is the Yellowknife Women's Centre.