Chapter 1 - THE SCREWS IN THE SERVICE DOOR
“Leave her there.
The broken leg will be her punishment for not knowing how to obey,” Derek said while his mother was still holding the wooden rolling pin.
The third blow had sounded different.
It was not the dull impact of wood against skin.
It was a deep crack that shot from my shin through my entire body.
I collapsed onto the kitchen tiles and saw my left leg twisted at an impossible angle.
“Margaret… she broke it,” I managed to whisper.
My mother-in-law stood over me, breathing heavily.
Her face was red with rage, but there was no remorse in her eyes.
“I warned you not to talk back to your elders in this house,” she spat.
“Ever since you married my son, you’ve acted like you’re better than everyone because you went to college.”
It had begun because I said the stew was too salty for Walter, my father-in-law, who suffered from severe high blood pressure.
That was all.
Margaret treated my concern like an insult.
First, she called me ungrateful.
Then she picked up the rolling pin.
Derek entered when I was already on the floor.
For one hopeful second, I believed my husband would call an ambulance.
Three years earlier, when we met at a wedding in Cincinnati, he had promised he would never allow anyone to hurt me.
Instead, he crouched beside me, grabbed my chin, and forced me to look at him.
“Abigail, you always provoke my mother,” he said.
“What would it have cost you to keep your mouth shut?”
“I need a hospital,” I begged.
“I can’t feel my foot.”
Derek examined the swelling spreading beneath my pajama pants.
Then he stood and wiped his hands as though touching me had disgusted him.
“We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
“Tonight, you’re going to learn.”
It was shortly after eight o’clock.
Rain struck the windows of the large brick home in a gated Indianapolis neighborhood.
My purse, phone, identification, and bank cards were locked inside a cabinet in the living room.
Derek called it protection.
In reality, they had been controlling my salary, monitoring my calls, and preventing me from visiting my family for months.
I had tried to leave after losing a pregnancy.
Margaret called me useless.
Derek said perhaps the miscarriage was for the best because a child would have complicated “the family finances.”
When I mentioned divorce, they took my documents and warned me that no one would believe a woman as unstable as I was.
From the kitchen floor, I listened as Derek ordered dinner.
“Mom, don’t upset yourself anymore,” he said.
“I ordered enchiladas and the cake you like.”
“Dad, turn on the game.”
The television came on.
They ate, laughed, and discussed sports while I trembled on the cold tile.
At one point, Walter asked whether they should take me to the emergency room.
“She isn’t going to die,” Derek replied.
“Tomorrow, we’ll say she fell.”
“Then she’ll quit her job and stay here.”
“That way, we can finally control her.”
That was when I understood.
They did not want to teach me a lesson.
They wanted to break me until I stopped being a person.
I waited until the house became quiet.
Near midnight, I dragged myself across the floor using my elbows.
Every movement sent pain through me.
I bit my sleeve to keep from screaming.
The service door was locked.
Its lower ventilation grate had four rusted screws.
In the bottom kitchen drawer, I found an old metal bottle opener.
My fingers were bleeding by the time the first screw began to turn.
The second took longer.
The third nearly made me lose consciousness.
When I loosened the fourth, the grate fell outward.
The opening was narrow.
I pushed my shoulders through first.
My broken leg scraped against the metal frame.
For one terrible moment, I became trapped.
Then I heard footsteps upstairs.
Derek was awake.
I forced myself forward.
The skin along my arms tore against the edge, but I did not stop.
I fell onto the wet concrete outside.
Rain struck my face.
I crawled through the mud toward the neighboring house.
Behind me, the kitchen light came on.
The service door rattled.
Derek had discovered the missing grate.
“Abigail!”
His voice thundered through the rain.
I reached the neighbor’s back porch and hit the glass with the bottle opener.
Once.
Twice.
The light inside turned on.
An elderly woman named Mrs. Delgado opened the curtain.
She saw me on the ground.
She saw Derek running across the yard.
Then she did something he had never expected.
May you like
She raised her phone.
And began recording.
