Eight months pregnant, I was moving slowly, as if each step carried the weight of two lives. My name is Natalie Foster, and that afternoon, in the apartment in Chicago, I forgot to put salt in the soup. It was a small mistake, but with Connor, negligence was paid for dearly.

Natalie opened her mouth to answer, but the sound that followed was not a word. It was the sharp crack of Connor’s hand against her face. Her ears rang instantly, and before her body could process the pain, he grabbed the pot and tipped it over her head. Hot broth soaked her hair and ran down her cheeks and neck, dripping onto the floor.

“Useless,” Connor shouted. “You cannot even cook.”

Natalie stood still. Her baby shifted inside her, a sudden anxious movement that made her breath hitch. She did not scream. She did not cry. She stared at the tiles and counted her breaths, one, two, three, the way she had learned to do when the shouting started months ago.

Connor walked past her toward the balcony, already lighting a cigarette as if nothing had happened.

Natalie went into the bathroom and turned on the cold water. She washed the soup from her hair slowly, methodically. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she noticed something that frightened her more than the slap. Her eyes were calm. Not numb, not broken. Calm.

“If he does this because of salt,” she thought, gripping the sink, “what will he do when the baby cries at night.”