Amaka struggles to stand, but her hand slides on the slick tiles. She knows she must get up and attend to the wound on her chest. She can’t.

She spots something dark in the distance, and it’s only when she hears the sound — a ragged breath and an exhaled threat — that she realises it’s him.

“See what you made me do… see,” he grunts.

Now she knows she must get up.

Her wounds can wait- the dripping gash and the rising lump including the mess made as they struggled.

She and her siblings wouldn’t have suffered if her mother had stayed back with her fist-happy father. She thinks.

What would people say if they found out that she let her husband die?

Femi watches his wife struggle to stand. For a moment, he feels regret, a tight knot in his chest. It stays for as long as a wink, then disappears. It’s replaced by a lightness, as though a burden has been lifted from his chest. She deserves this. Why would she go through his phone? Why would she ask him about his secretary in that tone?

He knows he shouldn’t have flung her against the TV or shoved the bread knife into her shoulder. But he had been angry, and she had told him to respect her.

Respect her?

Five and crouching behind a chair, his mother had walked away from his father while he was still speaking.

Minutes later, blood was seeping from between her legs. His father had boomed his favourite quote:

“Women are like wild horses; they need to be broken.”

Days later, the bump in her stomach had flattened.

As he watches Amaka look in his direction, her eyes lowered, he knows he has succeeded in breaking his horse.