My mother-in-law Margaret beat me with a heavy wooden rolling pin in our kitchen because I’d mentioned the soup was too salty for her husband’s high blood pressure, and on the third blow I heard the sickening crunch of my left tibia snapping clean through; my husband Andrew walked in, saw me crumpled on the tiles screaming for a doctor, and told me coldly that a broken leg was exactly what I deserved for always refusing to obey his mother.

They locked my phone, purse, and ID in the living room, turned on the soccer game, ordered enchiladas and cake for dinner, and left me lying there on the cold tile for hours debating whether to just let me die or take me to the hospital in the morning where they’d all agree I’d simply tripped and fallen; they’d already stolen my wages, monitored my calls, and threatened me into silence once before after my miscarriage, and this time they intended to break me completely so I’d never defy them again.

Around midnight I dragged myself across the floor on my elbows, every inch pure agony, found a rusty bottle opener in the back of a drawer, and started unscrewing the ventilation grate on the back door one corroded screw at a time—they thought they’d caged a helpless victim forever, but they had no idea that before the sun came up the woman they’d destroyed would already be gone, and the police would already be kicking their front door in.