PART 1
My husband thought I was just a weak housewife, someone he could bruise, silence, and lie about forever. He forgot I had once made dead bodies speak.
For seven years, Evan called me delicate in public and useless in private. At charity dinners, he touched the small of my back and smiled for photographs. At home, his hand became a warning, his voice became a cage, and every apology came wrapped in flowers I was expected to arrange on the dining table.
“You’re lucky I married you,” he liked to whisper. “Without me, you’re nothing.”
His mother, Vivian, agreed. She wore pearls like weapons and inspected me like cheap furniture.
“She was pretty when you married her,” Vivian said once, while I stood three feet away holding a tray of coffee. “But women like her age quickly when they have no purpose.”
I said nothing.
That was what they mistook for weakness.
