Just 11 minutes after I returned from the hospital with a shattered femur, my mother-in-law kicked my crutches away. Ignoring my agonized screams, she and my husband dragged me into a pitch-black garage.

For what felt like forever, I remained exactly where they left me.

Twenty minutes.

An hour.

I could not tell.

Time had become a dark room with no doors.

The concrete drained warmth from my body. Sweat cooled against my skin. Every breath made the broken pieces in my leg pulse and grind.

Then, faintly from upstairs, music began to drift down.

Opera.

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