“Go next door.”

He pulled his arm away.

“You don’t know what she’s like when people embarrass her.”

I looked at the blanket.

Richard had chosen the same thing he had chosen at dinner.

Silence.

Around eleven, Mason and Richard carried me from the kitchen into the laundry room. They said the kitchen floor needed to be cleaned before morning.

Mason held me under the arms while Richard supported my injured leg with both hands. The moment they lifted me, I screamed.

Beatrice closed the back curtains.

“Keep your voice down.”

They placed me on a pile of folded towels beside the washing machine.

Mason brought a bucket and set it near my hip.

I stared at it.

“You’re leaving me in here?”

“Just for tonight.”

“Unlock the door.”

“So you can crawl outside and make a scene?”

He smiled slightly, but his eyes did not.

“Get some sleep, Danielle.”

The door clicked shut behind him.

I heard the lock turn.

For a while, I lay still beneath the old blanket.

The room smelled like detergent and damp cotton. Rain tapped against the small window above the dryer.

Across from me was the back door.

The upper half was glass. The lower half had a rectangular metal vent used for airflow when the dryer was running.

I had cleaned that vent dozens of times.

Four screws held it in place.

A plastic laundry basket sat beside me. Inside it were clean towels, two shirts, and one of Richard’s work aprons.

The apron had a small metal screwdriver in the chest pocket.

I reached for it.

Four Screws

The first screw took nearly ten minutes.

I had to lie on my side and stretch toward the door, dragging my injured leg behind me. Every few inches, I stopped and pressed my forehead against the floor until the pain eased.

The screwdriver kept slipping from my fingers.

I wrapped Richard’s apron around the handle to improve my grip.

The second screw came loose faster.

Upstairs, pipes creaked. A toilet flushed. Footsteps crossed the hallway and stopped near the stairs.

I froze.

No one came down.

By the time I removed the fourth screw, sweat had soaked through the collar of my shirt.

I pulled the vent cover away.

Cold rain blew through the opening.

The space was narrow. I could not fit my shoulders through it, but the vent frame was attached to a thin panel inside the door.

I pushed the screwdriver under the edge and leaned my weight against it.

The panel cracked.

The sound seemed loud enough to wake the entire house.

I waited.

Nothing moved upstairs.

I pushed again.

A piece of the lower panel split away, leaving an opening just wide enough for my upper body.

I slid one arm through, then my head.

The metal edge scraped my shoulder.

My broken leg caught against the laundry basket, and I bit down on the apron to keep from screaming.

Outside, rainwater ran across the concrete step.

I pulled until my hips cleared the opening.

Then I fell onto the back porch.

For a few seconds, I could not move.

The kitchen light was still on behind the curtains. Through a narrow gap, I could see the table where they had eaten while I lay on the floor.

My empty chair had been pushed neatly under the table.

I began crawling.

Our neighbors, the Wilsons, lived on the other side of a low wooden fence. Their porch light stayed on all night because Mr. Wilson worked early shifts at the airport.

The fence gate was twenty yards away.

I counted each movement.

Hands forward.

Pull.

Breathe.

Hands forward.

Pull.

Breathe.

Mud soaked through my jeans. Gravel cut into my palms. My injured leg dragged behind me at an angle I refused to look at.

Halfway across the yard, the back door opened.

Light spread across the wet grass.

“Danielle?”

Mason’s voice.

I did not turn around.

I reached the gate and pushed it with both hands.

It did not move.

The latch was on the other side.

“Danielle, stop.”

His shoes struck the porch steps.

I shoved my arm through the gap between the gate and the post. My fingers found the metal latch.

Mason crossed the yard behind me.

I lifted the latch.

The gate swung open.

I crawled onto the Wilsons’ driveway and screamed as loudly as I could.

“Help me!”

A light came on upstairs.

Mason stopped at the fence.

The Wilsons’ front door opened, and Mr. Wilson stepped outside wearing sweatpants and a gray T-shirt.

He looked at me, then at Mason.

“What happened?”

Mason raised both hands.

“She fell. She’s confused.”

Mr. Wilson walked past me and stood between us.

“Go back to your house.”

“She’s my wife.”

“And she’s asking for help.”

Mrs. Wilson appeared behind him with a phone pressed to her ear.

“An ambulance is coming,” she said.

Mason’s face changed.

He looked toward our house, where Beatrice now stood under the porch light with Richard behind her.

No one crossed the fence.

The First Person Who Believed Me

The paramedic cut my jeans open below the knee.

He did not ask why I had crawled through the rain until after they had placed me on the stretcher.

“Did someone do this to you?”

Mason stood near the ambulance speaking to a police officer. Beatrice had wrapped a coat around herself and was telling another officer that I had been emotionally unstable for months.

I watched her point toward the basement door.

The paramedic waited.

I could hear Mason saying the word accident.

I looked down at my leg. It was swollen and bent beneath the temporary brace.

“My mother-in-law hit me with a rolling pin.”

The paramedic did not look surprised.

He simply nodded and asked, “Did your husband call for help?”

“No.”

“Did anyone prevent you from leaving?”

I looked back at the broken vent in the laundry-room door.

“They locked me in.”

The paramedic turned toward the police officer beside the ambulance.

“We need this documented.”

At the hospital, X-rays showed fractures in two places. The orthopedic surgeon told me I would need surgery before noon.

A nurse named Carla sat beside my bed while another nurse cleaned the cuts on my hands.

“Is there anyone safe we can call?” Carla asked.

I gave her my mother’s number from memory.

My mother answered on the second ring.

Carla placed the phone against my ear.