Yasha Attends a Domestic Violence Support Group for the First Time

Yasha’s first attendance at a domestic-violence support group in St. Nacho’s turns the prospect of help into a test of whether he can recognize himself as someone entitled to receive it. JT points him toward the group after researching ways to help victims; inside, Yasha finds a silent circle of women and cannot make himself stay. His abrupt exit does not end the encounter: Mary Catherine follows him into the parking lot and meets his confusion with practical support.

The suggestion and the first visit

The sequence begins with a knock that wakes Yasha from sleep. JT is at the door in his blue work clothes. In explaining why he has come, he says that his line of work exposes him to many things and that he has researched how to help victims of domestic violence. He knows of a support group in St. Nacho’s and raises it as an option. His approach is grounded in information and concern, but the visit that follows belongs to Yasha: the suggestion cannot decide for him what the group will mean or whether he is ready to remain there.

That hesitation has a wider context in Yasha’s experience of self-reliance. He has been combat trained in Krav Maga and had believed he could always take care of himself; even so, Sander’s tightening grip and fury had caused him alarm. The contrast matters here. Physical training and confidence in one’s ability to defend oneself do not make the effects of abuse disappear, nor do they automatically make a support group feel like a place to belong. The invitation asks Yasha to enter a form of help that his old confidence may not have prepared him to accept.

Inside the circle

At the meeting, Yasha holds a cup of coffee and looks around at the women seated in a small circle of chairs. They are silent and visibly tense. He does not remember how he got there, a detail that conveys his disorientation without suggesting that he has chosen to speak or even knows what he wants from the meeting. The group is present as a room full of people carrying difficult experience, but Yasha initially encounters it as an unfamiliar setting rather than a ready-made community.

When he is given the chance to share, he falters. An unidentified person tells him it is all right if he does not feel like sharing that day. The offer leaves room for silence; it does not demand an explanation. Yet Yasha rises so quickly that his chair tips over and clatters onto the floor. In the quiet room, the noise makes his departure conspicuous. He has to stoop and pick the chair up, a brief practical interruption in the middle of his attempt to escape. He then insists that he does not belong there and rushes out. His reaction makes the distinction between access and belonging plain: he has entered the group, but entry alone has not made its shared purpose feel applicable to him.

Mary Catherine follows

Yasha heads toward the parking lot and passes the metal gates. Hearing heels behind him, he expects Alice to be the person following. Instead, he sees the woman he knows as his “pie lady,” Mary Catherine, hurrying after him in sandals that scramble over the pebbly blacktop. He slows because he is afraid she may hurt herself. Even while trying to leave, he remains alert to the possibility that someone else could be injured.

Mary Catherine calls him to stop and introduces herself by name, holding out her hand. Yasha takes it and gives the name by which Alice has introduced him: Yasha. The handshake establishes a direct acquaintance after the meeting has failed to become a place where he can speak. When he admits that he does not know what he is doing, Mary Catherine answers gently. She tells him that she lives there, has a car, and knows what to do, then takes him by the arm. Her response is concrete rather than diagnostic: she does not ask him to explain the outburst or persuade him that he belongs. The scene records her offer of direction and assistance, without specifying what happens after it or where she takes him.

What the encounter changes

The visit does not show Yasha suddenly becoming comfortable with group support. He leaves quickly, and the reassurance that he need not share that day does not overcome his conviction that the room is not for him. At the same time, the encounter does not reduce to an isolated refusal. Mary Catherine follows him beyond the gates, and their exchange gives his confusion an answer in the form of immediate companionship and practical help. The movement from the silent circle to the parking lot shifts the scene from a group setting in which Yasha cannot speak to a one-to-one encounter in which he can acknowledge uncertainty.

Their acquaintance continues in a different context: Yasha later says he is helping Mary Catherine Jensen at the pie business until Friday, when he hopes his brother will come to get him. That later work connection does not establish that the support-group visit caused their partnership, but it shows Mary Catherine remaining part of his life after his first attempt to attend. The event’s significance lies in this qualified beginning. Yasha does not yet claim the identity of a group member or survivor who feels at home among others, but the attempt brings him into contact with a person who responds to his departure by staying with him rather than treating it as the end of the conversation.