Then his hand closed around my upper arm.

I reached for the bedrail, my hands shaking so badly that my wedding ring clicked against the metal. “Vincent, stop.”

He pulled. Pain moved through my ribs as the weight of the casts dragged across the mattress, and the monitor’s steady rhythm broke into rapid alarms.

“Get out of this bed,” he hissed. “I’m not paying for a wife who can’t make herself useful.”

For eleven years I had measured every disagreement by how angry he might get. I apologized when I’d done nothing wrong.

I lowered my voice when he raised his.