Dr. Lawson walked out in front of everyone in the hallway. “Abigail was moved to a safe facility,” he said loudly. “Her injuries came from being hit multiple times with a heavy object. It was not a fall. The police are on it, so talk to her lawyer from now on.”
Derek went pale. “She is lying,” Walter cut in. “She makes things up when she gets stressed.”
“That ungrateful girl did this to herself!” Margaret screamed.
People in the hallway started talking. Nurse Rachel had her phone in her pocket, taping the whole thing.
The three of them ran for the elevator, and a minute later my phone rang. Derek dropped the nice guy act right away.
“You better get back home right now,” Derek threatened. “You are my wife, and everything you have is mine.”
I looked at Gwendolyn. She started recording and handed me a folder full of bank transfers, fake bills, and texts where Derek talked about keeping me broke so I could not leave.
I realized then that my broken leg was only part of what they did to me. Gwendolyn pointed to the last page and whispered, “Abigail, when they go home tonight, their lives are going to be completely upside down.”
PART 3
The police served the restraining order that afternoon. While Derek and his parents were busy causing a scene at the hospital, officers and a court worker went into the house with a warrant.
Mrs. Jenkins showed them the back door, the blood in the yard, and the kitchen floor. They found the rolling pin washed off, but with blood stuck in a crack in the wood. In Derek’s closet, they found my passport, my ID, three credit cards, and my bank papers.
They took his computer, too. When the three of them came home and unlocked the door, they stopped cold.
There were evidence boxes all over the place, photos on the table, and an officer reading off a list. My dad was there with Gwendolyn, packing up my clothes and papers.
“What are you doing in my house?” Derek yelled.
“Protecting your wife and collecting evidence,” the officer said.
Margaret tried to grab the rolling pin from an officer, but she ended up sitting in a chair, shaking with anger, while they explained that coming near me or my parents would put them in jail.
Late that night, Derek called me from a different phone. First, he started crying. “Abby, I messed up. My mom is a mess, but we can fix this. Come home. I promise nobody will ever touch you again.”
Then he tried to offer me money. “I will give you the apartment and two hundred thousand dollars. Just tell the cops you fell down.”
When I told him the divorce was already happening, he dropped the act. “You are not taking my stuff. You are nothing without me.”
“Without you, I am finally myself again,” I told him and hung up.
Gwendolyn saved the call. The next day, Margaret went back to the hospital with Derek’s aunts, Shirley and Brenda.
Margaret threw herself on the lobby floor, screaming that the doctors were keeping me prisoner, that I was crazy, and that I tried to hit her. A visitor filmed the whole thing, catching Margaret saying, “A wife needs to be kept in line at home.”
In a few hours, the video was all over Facebook and local group chats. I did not even have to post it; people heard it straight from her mouth.
The construction company where Derek worked as a manager saw the video. His boss, Gavin Palmer, came to my hospital room to talk to me.
“We feel terrible about what happened, Abigail,” Gavin said. “Derek works on big projects for us. Maybe we can settle this quietly?”
“I want him held responsible for what he did,” I said.
Gavin stopped acting nice. “A big scandal can ruin careers and the company name.”
“My broken leg is not a publicity problem for you to fix,” I replied.
Gwendolyn put a stack of fake invoices on the table. The money had gone to a fake business owned by Derek’s cousin, Gabe, and ended up in Margaret’s account—the same one my paycheck went into.
Gavin walked out without saying another word. Two days later, Derek was fired after an audit proved he was stealing money and forging my signature on papers I had never seen.
Walter came by my room alone that afternoon with some fruit, looking completely beat. “Abigail, what Margaret did was wrong,” he muttered. “But Derek is going to lose everything. We are family.”
“Family?” I said. “You watched me bleeding on the floor and went to eat dinner.”
He looked down at the floor. “I did not know how to stop her.”
“You did not want to stop her,” I said.
I brought up all those years I gave them my paycheck, cooked for them after work, took their abuse, and begged for help. I brought up the miscarriage, my locked-up cards, and the night he listened to his son say I should not get medical help.
Walter stood there for a second. “How much money do you want?”
“I want my money back, my half of the house, my medical bills paid, and extra for what you did,” I told him. “But you cannot buy my silence. Writing a check does not make what you did go away.”
He got angry. “You are getting real mean.”
