I asked Patricia what she wanted.
She told me to stop pretending I didn't understand.
I looked at Daniel.
He stood with his arms folded, his expression flat.
"Please," I said. "I'm not feeling well today."
Patricia gave a short laugh.
"You're never feeling well when somebody expects something from you."
I was already tired.
My lower back hurt, and the skin across my stomach felt tight whenever I bent forward.
I had slept badly the night before.
I wanted to go upstairs, lie down, and wait for the feeling of dread to pass.
Instead, I stayed where I was.
"What did I do?"
Patricia stepped closer.
"You embarrassed me."
I couldn't understand what she meant.
She began listing things I had done over the previous week.
The storage room.
The dinner.
The way I had spoken when she questioned my doctor's instructions.
Each small disagreement had become another item on a list I hadn't known she was keeping.
I tried to answer.
Every answer made her angrier.
Daniel finally spoke.
"Just apologize."
I stared at him.
"For what?"
"For disrespecting my mother."
"I didn't disrespect her."
He moved toward me.
"Don't make this worse."
I wish I could say that I understood the danger at that moment and tried to leave.
I didn't.
I still believed there was a sentence I could say that would make him remember who I was.
"I'm sorry if I upset her," I said.
Patricia shook her head.
"That's not an apology."
I swallowed.
"I'm sorry."
She looked at Daniel.
He gave a small nod.
I remember that nod more clearly than I remember what happened immediately afterward.
It was quiet.
Ordinary.
The kind of gesture a person might make when agreeing about the weather.
But I saw something in it that I could not explain away.
He had already decided that his mother's anger mattered more than my fear.
Patricia pointed toward the wooden bench.
"Get down."
I looked at her.
"What?"
"You heard me."
I took a step backward.
Daniel caught my arm.
"Do what she says."
I tried to pull free.
"Daniel, please."
He tightened his grip.
I had never seen that expression on his face before.
He wasn't shouting.
He wasn't losing control.
He looked impatient, as if I were delaying a task he wanted finished.
I began to cry.
Not loudly.
I was still trying to keep the situation from becoming worse.
That was the terrible part.
Even then, I was managing their feelings.
Daniel forced me toward the bench.
I resisted, and he shoved me forward.
My hands struck the rough wood.
Pain shot through my stomach as I tried to catch myself.
"Stop," I said.
Patricia ordered me to remain still.
I twisted around to look at her.
She was holding a length of rattan cane.
It was damp.
I could see the water shining along its surface.
For one impossible second, I thought she was going to use it to frighten me.
I thought Daniel would intervene.
He didn't.
He forced me down across the bench and pressed his weight against my back.
I could barely breathe.
My stomach pressed against the wood, and I tried to shift my body so that I wasn't putting so much pressure on the baby.
Daniel told me to stop moving.
I begged him to get off me.
He ignored me.
Patricia stood beside us with the cane in her hand.
I remember the sound it made when she moved it through the air.
A thin, sharp whistle.
Then the first strike landed.
I screamed.
Daniel pressed down harder.
I tried to twist away, but the bench dug into my stomach.
The next strike came before I could recover from the first.
I couldn't understand how the situation had become real.
Only minutes earlier, I had been standing near the back door, asking what I had done wrong.
Now I was trapped beneath my husband's weight while his mother hurt me.
I kept asking them to stop.
I told them I was pregnant.
I told them I was sorry.
I promised to do whatever they wanted.
None of it mattered.
Patricia continued.
The pain became difficult to separate into individual moments.
There was the sound of the cane.
The scrape of wood beneath my hands.
Daniel's breathing above me.
My own voice, growing hoarse as I begged.
I tried to protect my stomach with my arms, but Daniel pulled them away.
"Stay still," he said.
I had never heard him speak to me like that.
It was not the voice of a husband arguing with his wife.
It was the voice of someone who believed he had the right to control another person's body.
I thought about the baby.
That thought was stronger than every other thought I had.
I tried to keep my belly from pressing against the bench.
Every time I moved, Daniel forced me back down.
I told him the baby could be hurt.
He said I was being dramatic.
I remember those words because they sounded so familiar.
He had used them when I cried after his mother insulted me.
He had used them when I asked him to defend me.
Now he was using them while holding me down.
At some point, Patricia stopped.
I was shaking so badly that I could not raise my head.
I thought it was over.
Then she told Daniel to bring something.
He released me just enough to reach toward the ground.
I heard a cupboard door open.
When he returned, Patricia was holding a small container of chili powder.
I stared at it.
I couldn't understand why it was there.
She placed it beside my hand.
"Pick it up."
I shook my head.
"No."
Daniel pushed my shoulder down.
"Do what she says."
I began pleading again.
I said I would apologize properly.
I said I would clean the storage room.
I said I would never argue with her again.
Patricia told me that if I wanted to learn what disobedience cost, I needed to understand the consequences.
She ordered me to take the container.
I tried to move away from it.
Daniel caught my wrist and forced my hand toward the powder.
I was crying so hard that I could barely see.
They made me sprinkle it over the damaged skin on my back.
The burning was immediate.
I screamed and tried to pull away.
Daniel grabbed me again.
Then they put a sock into my mouth.
I remember the taste of old fabric.
I remember trying to breathe through my nose.
I remember the awful helplessness of making a sound that nobody could hear properly.
I remember thinking that if I fainted, I might fall against my stomach.
I had no idea how much time passed.
The pain seemed to stretch every second into something longer.
When they finally let me move, my arms trembled beneath me.
I tried to stand.
My legs would not hold me.
I slipped off the side of the bench and landed on the ground.
My stomach brushed the rough edge of the wood as I fell.
I cried out.
Daniel stepped back.
Patricia told me to get up.
I tried.
My hands slid against the ground, and my knees buckled.
I crawled away from the bench because I could not stand.
I wasn't thinking about dignity.
I wasn't thinking about whether they would laugh at me.
I wanted distance.
Just a little distance between my body and the people who had hurt it.
I heard a vehicle outside the gate.
An engine idled for a moment.
Then someone called out from the road.
I could not make out the words.
Patricia turned toward the gate.
Daniel looked over his shoulder.
For a brief moment, both of them seemed distracted.
I used that moment to drag myself farther from the bench.
My palms scraped against the ground.
I could feel my heartbeat in my ears.
I wanted to reach the house.
I wanted a phone.
I wanted someone who would help me.
But I could not stand, and the distance seemed impossible.
I heard Patricia speaking.
Her voice was sharp and controlled.
She told Daniel to deal with me.
I couldn't see his face.
I heard his answer, but the words were muffled by the ringing in my ears.
Then I heard footsteps.
I stopped moving.
I was terrified they were coming back.
A shadow crossed the ground beside me.
Someone told me to get inside.
I tried to push myself up.
My body refused.
I looked toward the gate.
For a moment, I thought I saw two people standing beyond it.
I couldn't make out their faces.
One seemed to be near a vehicle.
The other stood closer to the entrance.
I wanted to call for help.
The sock was no longer in my mouth, but my throat hurt too much for my voice to come out properly.
I managed a small, broken sound.
Nobody came through the gate.
The shadows shifted.
Then the vehicle moved away.
I never knew who those people were.
At the time, I was too frightened to think about them for more than a second.
Daniel finally crouched beside me.
His face had changed again.
He looked irritated, but there was something else in his expression.
Concern, perhaps.
Or the fear that someone might have seen enough to ask questions.
"Can you get up?"
I looked at him.
I couldn't believe he was asking me that.
He had been sitting on my back.
He had held me down.
He had watched while his mother hurt me.
Now he was asking whether I could stand.
I shook my head.
He glanced toward the gate.
"Don't make a scene."
I started crying again.
He took my arm and tried to pull me upright.
I screamed when he moved me.
He released me immediately.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then Patricia appeared in the doorway.
"What is taking so long?"
Daniel looked at me.
"You need to get inside."
I tried to tell him that I needed a hospital.
He said I was not going anywhere until I calmed down.
That was when I finally understood that they were not going to help me.
I was alone with them.
And they still believed they controlled what happened next.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: I Had Spent Months Making Excuses for My Husband, but the Doctor’s First Question Left Me With Nowhere to Hide
The Morning I Learned That Keeping My Family Together Had Become More Important to Everyone Than Keeping Me Safe
Part 2 of 20
