When I crumpled onto my husband’s driveway with his birthday brisket sliding out of my hands, he didn’t rush to catch me—he stared down, annoyed, and said, “Judith, for God’s sake, stop this and stand up.” His mother called me attention-seeking, the guests backed away like I was contagious, and while a football cake melted under the Kentucky heat, one small bitter thing I’d ignored for months finally stopped feeling harmless.
My name is Judith Santana. I was thirty-two years old the summer my husband tried to kill me, and if you had asked me six hours before I hit that driveway whether my marriage was in trouble, I probably would have laughed and said something polite about communication, stress, and how every family has a little dysfunction if you zoom in far enough.
