“Maybe now you’ll learn your place,” my mother-in-law sneered after my husband attacked me while I held our sick baby post-surgery. Weak and trembling, I locked us in the room and dialed one number. Minutes later, heavy boots kicked down the front door, and my husband’s face went pale as my father walked in wearing his general’s uniform and said…

agony.

“Clean yourself up,” he muttered, stepping over a rivulet of my blood. “You’re making a mess of the carpet.”

And then, they walked away.

I listened to the click of the guest room door. The soft thud of Patricia’s bedroom closing. The rattle of the front door as Denise let herself out into the night. They abandoned me on the floor with a torn abdomen continue reading …