When my husband welded the door shut on the dog cage in our basement and left me naked, nine months pregnant, and bleeding on the cold metal floor while he told our dinner guests upstairs I was “visiting family,” I knew the night would end in one of two ways.
I would die giving birth behind those bars, or I would finally put Marcus where he could never reach me again.
The basement smelled like cold metal, damp concrete, and the dinner his mother had carried past the basement door without bringing me a bite.
Above me, forks touched plates.
A chair moved across the dining room floor.
Someone laughed at a story Marcus was telling.
He had always been good at sounding normal when other people were listening.
That skill had protected him longer than his temper, his fists, or the locks.
Upstairs, he was a husband explaining why his pregnant wife had missed dinner.
Downstairs, he was the man who had starved me for three weeks and measured my survival by whether the baby still kicked.
Every other day, he pushed one rotten apple through the bars.
