My husband shoved me, shattering the bathroom mirror. His mother sneered, “Clean up this disgusting mess.” But as I fell, my husband roared, “What’s in your pocket?!” The red LED of my federal distress fob pulsed. Denied the third click, I threw myself onto the broken glass, and…

The mirror fractured a fraction of a second before the blinding wave of pain fully registered.

My husband, Vance Sterling, still had his thick, calloused fingers tangled ruthlessly in the roots of my hair when I watched my own reflection splinter into a dozen jagged, silver fragments. The bathroom light, an unforgiving, sterile fluorescent hum, flickered continue reading …