Fighting back

When Lisa Kapler learned that Jane Doe Inc. was a major beneficiary of the upcoming Picnic in the Park, a fund-raiser sponsored by the Red Sox Wives, she knew she had to speak up. As she sat on the floor of the Family Room at Fenway Park weeks later, she listened to the other wives discussing the event with officials from Jane Doe, a nonprofit that combats domestic violence. Then, an agency official made a startling announcement: One of the Red Sox wives had revealed that she had been a victim of dating violence.

Kapler raised her hand. "This happened to me," she said.

The other wives seemed stunned. Kapler didn't offer details, except to say it was long ago, in a high school relationship. But the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to go public with her story to show "that this can happen to a girl from a suburban family with two parents." She had kept her secret long enough.

"I break the stereotype of domestic violence," she says on a recent morning, at the apartment in a Boston suburb she shares with her husband, outfielder Gabe Kapler, and their two sons, who are 2 and 4. The place is minimally furnished with rentals; their main residence is in California. While she speaks, her sons are upstairs with a babysitter, her husband on the road with the team. She's a striking woman with large green eyes and long wavy hair. Wearing low-slung jeans and two silver hoops through one ear, she looks younger than her 28 years.

"I was raised with a mom and stepfather who were loving with each other. I never witnessed abuse of any kind," she begins. She was a member of the drill team at her high school in Southern California. She was popular. She had good grades and good friends.

She also had black eyes, fat lips, and bruises. She was punched, kicked, and choked. She says her boyfriend held a gun to her head and pulled a knife on her, threatened to kill her if she left, and kill her family if she told.

According to a national study, 20 percent of high school girls say they've been physically abused by a date. Kapler was 14 when it began and 17 when it ended. She says she is speaking out now, 11 years later, because her husband's position as a Red Sox player has given her a forum. She wants other girls to heed the warning signs. She wants parents and teachers to tune in; hers didn't. She wants schools to discuss dating violence in their health classes. And she wants to help heal the naive ninth-grader who still exists somewhere deep in her soul.

"Speaking about it is empowering," she says.

Her husband is supportive of her decision. She invokes his name often; he was the one, she says, who taught her what a good relationship is.

"Gabe is really my savior in all of this," she says. "I started dating him immediately after, and he provided a role model for what a healthy relationship should be. He was the one who happened to be right there to catch me because I was falling."

But before Gabe, there was the abusive boyfriend. The last time she heard from him was the night before her high school graduation, when he threatened to shoot her as she walked across the stage.

Hiding the bruises
The relationship had started innocently enough. As a ninth-grader, Lisa was pleased when a boy three years older took an interest in her. He was her first boyfriend, and she was flattered that he wanted her all to himself. The first months were fun, though she realized she was seeing less of her girlfriends and more of him.

Then he hurt her.

"It came out of nowhere," she says. "We were just sitting around talking, and he bit my cheek till it bled. He laughed. He thought it was the funniest thing in the world."

Lisa was angry and confused, but decided to stay with him because his father was dying and she felt sorry for him. "When they say girls are attracted to bad boys, there's truth to it," she says. "I think it's the challenge of it."

The couple would "play fight," but the play would escalate to violence. One day, he snatched a letter she had written to a friend, saying she was ending the relationship. "He grabbed me by the throat, slammed me against the locker, and yelled at me in front of everyone. I was horrified, humiliated, and confused. I went to my next class, put my head on the desk, and cried."

In classic form, the boy would apologize after each episode and swear it would never happen again. "Not knowing about the cycle of violence, I would believe it," she says. "I wanted to believe it."

But always the abuse would resume. Once, she fought back and paid the price. "He hit me in the neck so hard I felt I couldn't move," she recalls. "You learn not to fight back. You learn not to create chaos. You learn how to be a victim. You learn how to cry quietly. You learn how to make up excuses."

She'd blame her bruises on drill team practices. Meanwhile, she was becoming explosive herself. "If a girl looked at me wrong, I'd be in her face," she says. "In my mother's mind, I was just a typical bitchy adolescent girl." Word spread around school that she was being beaten up, but no one intervened.

"I remember one time a young male teacher walked by me and saw my eye, and he looked at me like, `You poor girl,' " she says, her eyes tearing up.

Over the course of three years, her boyfriend continued to beat and choke her. Afterward, he would give her ice and buy her makeup to hide the bruises.

Meanwhile, her friends wouldn't tell her to leave, and his friends wouldn't tell him to stop. "Kids are not taught about this kind of thing," she says. When she did try to leave, she would be beaten. She says he once pointed a gun at her and said, "Are you ready to die?" She would assure him she wanted to stay with him forever. "You learn the words that save you." Another time, he pulled a knife on her when she spoke to another boy. He never took responsibility for his behavior, she says, blaming her for talking to this boy or flirting with that one. "You made me do it," was his refrain.

One night, after he sneaked into her room, her parents were awakened by her screams. Her stepfather kicked down the door, and the boy ran. The next day, they got a restraining order requiring him to stay away from Lisa.

But the court order did not create "a bulletproof shield around me," she says. "It didn't scare him off." He had graduated from high school but still shadowed her. Like many battered women, Lisa took him back. "I was just as addicted to him as he was to me," she says. "I was addicted to changing him."

He introduced her to friends he said had been jailed for violent behavior. If she told on him, they would come after her family, he said. "I know where your little sister goes to school," he taunted. "I know where your mother works."

Lisa Kapler says it is "by the grace of God" that they finally broke up. His father had died, his stepmother kicked him out of the house, and he moved 45 minutes away to live with an aunt. He'd still threaten her by phone, but basically it was over. "He let me go, and I ran," she says.

Speaking out
Meanwhile, she'd developed a crush on Gabe Kapler, a star on the high school baseball team. He'd invite her to games, but she never went. (She still doesn't go. "I hate baseball," she says.)

Toward the end of their senior year, they started going out, with occasional harassment from the old boyfriend. But Lisa had been immersed in a violent relationship for three years and had learned that behavior. She'd pick arguments with Gabe, and even hit him. "He would tell me it was not OK to do that. He would get out of the car and leave. I was a disaster at the beginning of our relationship, and he had the courage to give me a chance," she says.

Gabe told her he wouldn't marry her until she got therapy, and she did. "I supported her the best I could," he says. "If she got a little physical, I just calmed her down and at the same time, let her know that it was unacceptable. She's a different person now." They married in 1999. He says he is proud of her for speaking out and hopes her story will help others.

It has helped Lisa's younger sister. Kristi Mortara remembers those high school years: Lisa with a black eye, saying she'd taken an elbow during drill team practice; the household being awakened with Lisa's screams the night her boyfriend choked her. Most of all, she remembers Lisa's help when she herself became involved in an abusive relationship.

"She was very instrumental in attempting to get me away from him. I wasn't ready," says Mortara, who lives in Southern California. But she eventually extricated herself, and she credits her sister. "She was persistent, and very supportive when I finally detached myself."

Their mother, both women say, feels guilty for not realizing what was happening. "Had she not been working those strange hours, she would have noticed more," Mortara says. (Their mother, a nurse who worked nights when the girls were younger, was not available for comment for this story.)

Lisa Kapler's physical scars have long since healed, but the emotional ones remain. She says she has unresolved anger. She and Gabe have become interested in Kabbalah, the philosophy of Jewish mysticism. It has helped calm her and is teaching her to take responsibility for her behavior, she says. She volunteers with a children's Kabbalah program.

Meanwhile, she plans to continue speaking out about dating violence, telling girls -- and boys -- that everyone deserves a respectful relationship. "I'm like the Cinderella story for domestic violence," she says. "I survived, and I feel so lucky."

Picnic in the Park, hosted by the Red Sox Wives, will be held Sunday night at Fenway Park following the game against the Phillies. For tickets or more information, visit www.redsoxfoundation.org.