objected to Mark tracking her phone or checking her messages, Linda wrote it down as instability.

There were notes from nights Emily had begged to sleep at a friend’s house after screaming fights, transformed on paper into irrational wandering.

There was even a printed email draft to a doctor Emily had never met, asking about the process for an emergency psychiatric hold.

I looked at Mark.

He had the decency to look ashamed for exactly one second before self-pity took over.

It wasn’t like that, he said.

She gets upset and spirals.

We were trying to protect her from herself.

Emily laughed once, but there was no humor in it.

It came out ragged and wounded.

Protect me, she said.

You took my phone.

You locked the back door.

You told me if I tried to leave looking like this, everyone would believe I was crazy.

Linda pointed one rigid finger at her.

Because you were screaming.

Because your son hit me, Emily fired back.

The room went still.

I had suspected it from the instant I saw her face, but hearing the words out loud was like stepping off a ledge and discovering the ground was farther away than you thought.

Emily’s chest was rising too fast.

I moved back to her side as Robert started in with a low, angry protest about exaggeration.

Tell me what happened, I said.

She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes for a second, then lowered them.

Tonight I told Mark I wanted to go home, she said.

Not tomorrow.

Not after breakfast.

Tonight.

I told him I was done letting his mother read my messages and decide whether I was allowed to use the car.

He said I was acting ungrateful and dramatic.

I said I had found the folder.

Then he grabbed my arm and tried to take my phone.

When I pulled away, he shoved me into the side of the coffee table.

Mark shook his head too quickly.

I barely touched you.

Emily stared at him.

The bruise on her face answered for her.

She said it wasn’t the first time.

Three months earlier, he had pinned her against the kitchen counter hard enough to leave a bruise on her hip after she told him she wanted to spend Christmas morning with me.

A few weeks after that, he had gripped her wrist in the garage until she dropped her phone because he didn’t like that she was texting an old coworker about a job opening.

Every time, Linda had an explanation ready.

He was under pressure.

He didn’t mean it.

Marriage was hard.

Don’t tell your father; he’ll overreact.

The ugliest part wasn’t that Mark had hit her.

It was how ordinary they had all made it seem afterward.

When Emily tried to get to the front door that night, she said, Linda stepped in front of it and told her she was not going to ruin the family with a scene.

Robert took her bag and put it somewhere in the house.

Mark smashed her phone when she tried to call for help.

Then Linda handed her tea and told her to calm down before she embarrassed herself further.

Emily had pretended to drink it.

Enough touched her tongue for her to taste the