Now is Everything

Now is Everything
by Amy Giles

The McCauleys, a family of four, appear to be the perfect family.  Yet they are hiding a secret.  

Hadley is a straight-A student, the captain of her lacrosse team, and nothing is giving off a red flag that there is something wrong at home.  Yet something is very wrong at home.  Her father is extremely controlling, violent and abusive.  She has a younger sister and lives in fear that soon her father's attention will turn from her, to her younger sister.  

Hadley is nicknamed Muscles.  She is so athletic not by choice but because she has to go through brutal workouts with her father.  She gets up to run at 4:30am, she is lifting weights and it's too much for her body as she comments about her hip pain that she is running through.  

This novel rotates between after the accident and prior to the accident. I like to see what happened prior to the accident, what happened and how she felt so hopeless.  And I was curious to find out exactly what happened at the accident.

She is surrounded by people who would help her if she said anything.  Hadley fears that nobody will believe her and asking for help would just merely escalate  the violence at home.  Her teachers, coach, friends, boyfriend, any one of them would want to help her.  And she has the bruises on her body that would proove that someone is hurting her.  

It's sad as someone in such a seemingly hopeless situation is surrounded by people who would help.  However, I could see an abuser purposely isolating their victim so they wouldn't even have those people to reach out too.

The one person I don't see lifting a finger to help her is the mother.  Her mother is constantly drinking wine, clearly an alcoholic, her mother deals with the problems at home by drinking.  Her mother doesn't defend her daughter, she blames her.  It's frustrating to see the mother not stand up for her daughter or to leave the abusive man to protect her family.  

However, at one time she would have been the father's victim and who knows what horrible ordeal she went through in the past that has now broken her and made her to constantly drink.  At the one time he focused on her, and now he is focused on Hadley, and soon he will turn his attention to the younger sister.

This was a good story that made you think about domestic violence and how you might help someone in that situation.