Every morning in our rundown Texas rental, my husband dragged me to the backyard, tied my hands to the porch pillar, and lashed my pregnant belly while yelling, “All you make is worthless daughters—you’re a broken wife!”

The leather strap struck Elena Mercer’s cream maternity dress just above the curve of her belly.

She jerked against the rope binding her wrists to the porch pillar.

Dawn had barely reached the patchy backyard outside Abilene, Texas. The neighboring rentals remained dark, their windows closed against the January cold. Derek always brought her outside before people left for work.

“All you make is worthless daughters,” he said. “You’re a broken wife.”

Elena twisted sideways, trying to place her shoulder between the strap and her unborn child. The rope burned her wrists. Her bare feet slipped across damp plywood.

Six feet away, Derek’s mother sat on an overturned bucket, drawing a file across the edge of a metal roofing tool.

Martha did not look disturbed.

“In this country, you still fail us,” she said. “Stand up and take it.”

Elena’s knees buckled.

Inside the house, a floorboard creaked.

Callie and June were awake.

Elena could picture seven-year-old Callie standing in the hallway with one hand over her little sister’s mouth, following the rule Elena had whispered the night before.

Do not come outside. Do not make him notice you.

“Please,” Elena said. “Don’t hurt the baby.”

Derek pulled the rope tighter until her shoulders pressed against the warped post.

“Then give me a son, or keep suffering.”

He raised his arm again.

Elena dropped to her knees.

The strap hit the pillar instead of her body, snapping against the wood. Derek cursed and turned toward Martha, demanding the tool she was sharpening.

While their attention shifted, Elena felt the rope move.

A rusted nail protruded from the back of the pillar. For three mornings, she had rubbed the knot against it whenever Derek looked away. One strand had finally split.

She did not pull free.

Not yet.

Derek would only bind her with something stronger.

Instead, Elena folded her hands beneath the curve of her stomach and lowered her head, pretending the fight had left her.

Martha handed Derek the metal tool.

“You’ll sign before breakfast,” she told Elena. “We’re done asking nicely.”

Derek released the rope thirty minutes later and dragged Elena into the kitchen.

A stack of documents waited beside a cold mug of coffee. Yellow tabs marked the signature lines.

The top page bore the name Mercer Residential Restoration.

Under “Managing Owner,” someone had already typed Elena’s name.

Derek placed a pen between her swollen fingers.

“Sign.”