She Survived: Anne

For Anne Bridges, when she goes back to the time leading up to the day Jimmy Williams attacked her, she doesn’t see a villain, some sort of obvious and vicious psychopath, or even a bad man. Instead, Anne looks at the calm and cerebral person she once knew.

Around Anne, Jimmy had always held it together. Polite, kind, generous, courteous, humorous, even fun. Although they’d amicably split so many years before, Anne had always viewed Jimmy as someone she could count on if she was ever in a jam. It was one of the reasons why she hopped into her car without a second thought, after speaking to Jimmy, and headed over to his Steel Bridge Road home in Shawnee after so many years of not talking to or seeing him.

Now, as I think back on how this played out, even though there were so many warning signs right in my face, I didn’t see any of them. The first was very obvious....

When I arrived at his house and saw it, my mind should have been saying, “Warning, warning,” but I was in denial, I guess, because of Jimmy being the man I used to know.

That should have told me something right away. But he had been through so much, like me, I just showed up wanting to be nice to him, show him friendship. Let him know that people out in the world still cared about him. That was truly my main reason for being there: proving to him that friends don’t let friends fade into nothingness.

Jimmy was dressed “proper,” Anne remembered. He looked great. Clean-cut. Handsome. It was “really weird,” she added. A sentimental feeling underscored the reunion. Here she was whisked right back to when she and Jimmy were in their twenties, dating, taking on the world together. It felt as if no time had passed between them, as if they had both stepped back in time.

That first night, Jimmy and Anne sat and talked. Jimmy bared his soul. He was upset with how his life had turned out. But so glad Anne was back in it, and she was willing to overlook the things people were saying about him. He swore to Anne that what people were spreading around town had not been what had happened. Rumors, Jimmy explained. Nothing but made-up tales to make the people spreading them feel better about their own pathetic lives.

The first night went extremely well, which turned into Anne Bridges stopping over to see Jimmy Williams every other day, if not four or five times every week. They’d sit and talk. About old times. Old friends. The 1970s and 1980s. Where their lives had gone, and where they were these days. Jimmy would cook BBQ on the grill. They’d watch videos. Take walks. Hang out on Jimmy’s back porch.

Anne had worked two part-time jobs then. She couldn’t handle being out of work after leaving the town clerk job, so she’d taken menial jobs to pass the time and make extra money. But any free time she found, which she did not dedicate to her son’s needs, Anne was with Jimmy at his house, hanging out.

And so here they were, rekindling a relationship at a time in their lives when they both needed some sort of meaningful human touch. Although Anne had a tingle in the back of her mind telling her to run as far away as she could from the guy, she decided to stick it out and see where it all went. She trusted what Jimmy was telling her. He’d never given her a reason not to. Was it a mistake in judgment? Or perhaps Anne was simply not listening to her gut instinct, like all of us do from time to time?

I believed I received the strength of an independent woman and my love for children from watching her, my mother, as we know children do watch their parents. My father was in law enforcement all of his life, except when he was a part of the U.S. Navy during World War II. Well, he gave to me my morals and taught me how to discipline myself.

I had graduated high school and continued my education at the University of West Alabama and received my State of Alabama Teachers Certificate, but I never taught school. Instead, I followed Dad’s footsteps and went to work at City Hall as city clerk and later as treasurer and magistrate. A rewarding part of my job was working with the police department, which included being appointed Secretary of the State of Alabama’s 17^th Judicial District Drug Task Force.

I know what you’re thinking right now: Why are you giving me a boatload of your history that I likely have no desire to know? I say this because I think it’s imperative for everyone to remember and understand that we should never classify victims of violent crime due to their socioeconomic class, their education, or anything else. What happened to me can happen to anyone. I thought I knew this man. I trusted him. But I am lucky to be alive and I need to keep saying this.

Several weeks after they’d rekindled the relationship, Jimmy called one night. He sounded a bit different than he had since Anne had been seeing him. She ignored the butterflies in her stomach and signs that something was off. It was the vibe of the conversation, Anne said later, which had beckoned her to question whether Jimmy was the same person she’d known all along.