Beverly Rogan's escape from Tom

On the night of May 28th, 1985, Beverly Rogan, a successful fashion designer trapped in a violently abusive marriage, received a phone call from Mike Hanlon, an old friend from her childhood in Derry, Maine. The call, which came during the middle of a television program, summoned her back to Derry to fulfill a promise made twenty-seven years earlier. This summons triggered a violent confrontation with her husband, Tom Rogan, and a desperate flight that severed her from her life in Chicago and set her on a collision course with the ancient evil that had haunted her youth.

The Phone Call and the Summons

Beverly was at home in Chicago with her husband Tom when the phone rang. Tom, who had been drinking beer and watching a baseball game, was nearly asleep. Beverly answered the call, and her sharp, curious "Whaaat?" drilled into Tom's ear. The conversation was with Mike Hanlon, who told her that "it" had started again and reminded her of the promise they had all made as children to return to Derry if the horror ever resumed. During the call, Beverly mentioned Bill Denbrough's name, which further enraged Tom. She asked Mike to reserve her a room and to say a prayer for her, a request that revealed her deep apprehension. After hanging up, she immediately began packing a suitcase with practical, faded clothing—jeans, cords, a sweater, tee-shirts, and an old Ship 'n Shore blouse—not the kind of clothes a woman would pack for a romantic rendezvous, but the gear of someone preparing for a difficult journey.

The Violent Confrontation

Tom Rogan, a large, powerful man with a history of domestic violence, was enraged by the call and by Beverly's subsequent actions. He had a long-established pattern of control, enforced through beatings he called "whuppins," a term he had learned from his own abusive mother. The immediate trigger for his fury was the cigarette Beverly was smoking, a habit he had supposedly broken her of through physical punishment. He retrieved a black leather belt from a hook inside the closet door, a tool he had used on her many times before. As Beverly packed, Tom confronted her, demanding she put the clothes back and get into bed. When she refused, telling him she had to go to O'Hare Airport, he attacked her with the belt, striking her repeatedly. The beating was severe, but this time Beverly fought back. She threw cosmetics at him, a bottle of Chantilly striking him in the chest and a jar of cream cutting his eyebrow. She then shoved a heavy vanity table into him, knocking him over. When he got up, she grabbed the belt and used it against him, striking him across the mouth and then, with a final, decisive swing, across his testicles. The blow brought him to his knees in agony.

The Flight into the Night

With Tom incapacitated, Beverly grabbed her suitcase and fled the house, leaving bloody footprints from a cut on her foot. She threw the belt over the bannister and stripped off her bloody nightgown in the downstairs hallway, dressing quickly in the old clothes she had packed. She ran three blocks into the night, barefoot and without any money or identification, before realizing her situation. She sat on a low stone wall, laughing at the stars, a mixture of terror and exhilaration washing over her. She was free, but also utterly alone and vulnerable, having left behind her wallet, credit cards, and all her possessions. The escape was a desperate, violent rupture from a life of systematic abuse, a necessary first step toward reclaiming her own identity and facing the far greater horror that awaited her in Derry.