She yelled at her thrusting husband, smiling at the rage sparked in his eyes. “Fuck me harder, you fag. Choke me, you pussy. Come on, slap me. Harder! You hit like you suck dick, Neal. You hit like a queer. Harder! Come on you faggot! That’s it, HARDER!” The last one does it.

She’s telling me her story through a broken jaw with her tear-soaked eyes dulled on painkillers.

“He beat me,” she says, “like he always does when he’s drunk.” All of her sounds are muffled and distorted through the wired jaw. “This time, he wouldn’t stop. He raped me and punched me while I begged him to quit. When he passed out, I left. I couldn’t tell them at the hospital.”

“Stay here,” I say, putting on my coat and grabbing my tool bag. “You’ll be safe here, I promise.” She had transformed, somehow, from an ex-girlfriend and friend into my mother. I imagined my mom, the night before he killed her, sobbing in the hospital under a crushed eye socket. Continually repeating that she had fell down some stairs.

I had to stop it.