The girl couldn't hear but she could see. Sitting with her and her mom and her older brother on the steps of a shelter in 1983, I saw evidence of terrible things. Vikki mother's face was a road map of abuse.  I took their picture. As time passed, Vikki grew up in a haze of alcohol. She married an abuser just like her mom. Her mother did not leave hers. Vikki did. Through sign language, she said "I met my husband and got stuck in a circle of abuse. He'd hit me, but I thought he would never hurt his own child. One day I found masses of bruises on my son's little body. I left that day to a battered women's shelter. I never went back." Now in a loving relationship, she recalls when she was a single mom creating a bright future for her children.  Love has nothing to do with violence.