“Well, right before I met you I was engaged to her. I’m sorry, I should have told you all this before now. I’m really sorry. I’m at her place now, but I’ll be right home.”
Michelle hung up the phone and dropped to her sofa. Tears filled her eyes. She had known nothing about any Janet. What had she gotten herself into? Married and pregnant. What were her options?
Minutes later, a repentant John Battaglia quietly padded through the front door of Michelle’s small house and began apologizing all over again.
Michelle listened. Today they had planned to drive to Austin, Texas, where John would be awarded his CPA license. Not one person in his family had called about his passing the tests, nor had anyone offered to go with him to the awards ceremony. His parents still lived near Dallas on Lake Ray Hubbard. He looked so pathetic that Michelle felt sorry for him and thought that someone should accompany him to Austin. She would go on one condition. As soon as they returned, they were going to have a very important meeting with this Janet. She wanted to know exactly how her new husband felt.
Mark Weisbart, John Battaglia’s friend who had introduced him to Michelle, let them use his apartment for their meeting with Janet. Weisbart even whisked Billy to McDonald’s while the confrontation took place.
John stood up in front of both women. He shook from fear, nervously licking his lips and running his fingers through his hair. Without eye contact, he told Janet that he wasn’t in love with her anymore and that he loved Michelle.
Only later would Michelle learn that while she was pondering whether or not to marry John, he was conspiring with Janet to leave Michelle after the baby was born, and to take his child and raise it with Janet.
FIVE
Once he became a CPA, John Battaglia’s accounting firm gave him a handsome raise in addition to larger, more prestigious clients. Now he looked forward to the day he would become a partner.
By July of 1985, Michelle was five months pregnant and the family would soon be needing a larger home. They began searching in neighborhoods close to their offices, and found a three-bedroom house on Bellewood Drive in the Lake Highlands area. There was also an excellent school for Billy only a half block from the new house.
Michelle was in the master bedroom, filling boxes with belongings. She called to her husband, who was watching television, “John, will you please come help pack this stuff?”
“Nah,” he replied. “Most of that’s yours. I don’t see why I should pack it.”
Michelle frowned, wondering why he’d have that attitude. It was true that almost everything belonged to her. She had accumulated a house full of lovely traditional furniture; some from her first marriage, and other pieces that she had inherited from her grandmother.
After packing another box, she walked into the living room and again asked for help as she passed by John.
He jumped up and grabbed her from behind, jerking his arm around her neck, his elbow bent in front of her.
Michelle’s eyes widened in disbelief. He was hurting her, but more than that, he was frightening her.
His mouth was only inches from her ear when he hissed, “I’ll help when I’m good and ready, if at all. Do you understand?”
He released his grip and Michelle angrily shoved him away, then ran crying to the bathroom. She stayed in there, holding a damp washcloth to her face and shaking with fear. He was so strong; she was totally under his control. If he had continued squeezing her neck, she couldn’t have stopped him. Thinking back to their ride to Baton Rouge and the gun he had carried, she realized that this marriage had been a terrible mistake.
When she came out, he was packing boxes as if nothing had happened.
The next week, the Battaglias moved to a Beaver Cleaver kind of neighborhood. Three- and four-bedroom homes graced neatly trimmed lawns that were laced with beds of begonias and caladium. Huge live oak trees made leafy green canopies over the streets.
Their new house, built of beige bricks, had a long porch spanning the front that was supported by decorative white wrought-iron columns.
The house was less than a mile from White Rock Lake, a city reservoir built in 1912. The lake rested in a natural cauldron and the entire area was a series of green, heavily treed hills that gently sloped toward the lake’s shores.
With more room for both her seven-year-old son and the new baby they were expecting, Michelle relaxed, knowing that now they were settled in their new home, her existence would be more peaceful.
The cool October nights held a hint of fall as summer finally lost its grip on Dallas. Michelle stood in the kitchen, cooking spaghetti. As she inhaled the spicy aroma permeating the room, the phone rang. She tucked the receiver between her shoulder and her ear and kept stirring. “Hello,” she said, and her mother’s voice greeted her.
John Battaglia was wrestling with her son in the living room. As she listened to her mother, she kept smiling to herself, thinking how wonderful her husband was with Billy.
She heard Battaglia say, “Okay, that’s enough.” Then she heard her son plead, “Just five more minutes.” Suddenly there was a loud thump and her son’s piercing scream.
She dropped the phone, leaving it to dangle and bang against the kitchen wall as she ran to the living room. She saw her son holding his arm and crying.
“He threw me against the wall,” Billy sobbed.
Wide-eyed, Michelle looked at her husband in horror.
“I told him I didn’t want to play anymore,” John said, showing no remorse. “Besides, it was an accident. I meant to throw him on the sofa.”
But only weeks later, Battaglia kicked her son’s rear, raising him off the floor. Again, John showed no remorse and went off to their bedroom to watch television. Michelle followed him, screaming at him to never do that again. Without looking away from the screen, he said that he wouldn’t.
Michelle’s frustration soared. At first, Billy had loved John; they were best friends. But now she could see her son begin to cower whenever John entered the room. She vowed to protect her son at all costs, but she was due to give birth in a month, and it seemed like the worst possible time to move out. Other than the two times John had hurt her son, he was wonderful to her and Billy, which only made her decision to leave more difficult. John effectively orchestrated his wife’s emotions. There were just enough good times to keep her staying with him.
Also, Michelle didn’t know that most batterers would not abuse a pregnant wife. Until the baby was born, they took their rage out on other family members.
A little after 6:00 P.M. on November 10, 1985, their beautiful, eight-pound daughter, Laura Julia, was born at Presbyterian Hospital. John Battaglia chose his mother’s name, Julia, for the child’s middle name. He was thrilled to have a daughter and spent many hours doting on her. She was his “Laurie Mouse” and he was her “Ba-ba.”
Battaglia was always around, playing with his daughter, grinning, waving his arms, making up funny words—anything to entertain her and hear her baby giggles.
However, the happiness of having a child was short-lived. In mere months, Battaglia switched back to his pattern of abusing Michelle. But he never again abused Billy.
Michelle began to detect a cycle. He seemed to explode every three months as circumstances would build. He never went into a depression; he’d just wind up tightly, like a clock. At the beginning of the cycle, he appeared normal, but tension would mount every few days. Then, as time progressed, he’d turn into a ranting, screaming stranger who was abusive and unrepentant for his actions. At those times, Michelle would be scared out of her wits, not knowing what John would do or who he might hurt.
After that, Battaglia