Every time my brother-in-law drove me home, I would black out and wake up sore. My husband just laughed and said I was out of shape. After the fourth trip, I hid a voice recorder in my purse — and that night I heard a phone call that made me realize the blackouts had never been accidents.

I turned it off.

I had my thumb over the button for about four seconds before I managed to press it.

I could not listen to one more second of it and I did not listen to the rest for eleven days.

I went into the bathroom and locked the door, which I have not done in eleven years in that flat.

And I stood in front of the mirror and pulled the neck of my blouse down.

There is a mark under my collarbone. Purplish, about the size of a thumb.

I had decided four days earlier that I must have caught myself on a cupboard.

And then the other thing arrived, which was my husband.

Not found out. Not suspected. Not was in a difficult position.

He gave instructions. About marks. On his wife. To his brother. On a Tuesday night.

But the sentence going round and round in my head at one in the morning was not any of that.