I had not responded to this, of course. I had just lain still and avoided making eye contact with him. I have learned that it is best not to provoke. I think of him as a rabid dog; he snarls and lowers his head, barks a low guttural bark, stands poised to attack, but if one is careful and does not move, does not breathe, sometimes the threat passes and the dog backs down, satisfied with his baring of teeth, the proof of his power and strength. So I absorbed, accepted, waited for him to leave (listened until his feet thumped down the stairs) and then scurried down the hall to the shower.

I am reaching for my flowered dress, the long one that flares in great clouds around me, and mentally finding tights, black shoes, silver earrings, when I hear my husband step through the door behind me. He doesn't speak; he simply takes giant strides toward me. Two steps and he is there. His arm is pulled back and his face is a mask and I know the dog has awakened.

All goes into slow motion as I watch what is about to happen. I think in a detached way that it is just like the movies, this arm pulled back, its slow approach, the smack of fist against bone, and then I feel the hard white pain of that fist, his right hand, the hand that has held mine, that has made love to me, that has reached for me, all knotted up now with rage behind it, and he hits me high on the face, on my cheekbone, just beneath my eye, and I am lifted from my feet and knocked backward into the closet, clutching at dresses to break my fall.

It has taken 10 seconds. I land in a heap on the dusty floor. There. I am knocked down, disappeared from his view, only my feet showing. My husband is satisfied and leaves the room as quickly as he entered it. Dimly, I hear him rousing the children, calling them to breakfast.

I sprawl, propped awkwardly against the suitcase in the back of the closet, and wait for the initial shock to pass. My thoughts are scrambled, my hand held numbly to my face; I don't feel anything yet. It is funny how a blow to the head does muddle the brain. I imagine all the thoughts in my mind as little people who have been flung suddenly from their comfortable houses, who lie stunned in the street for long bewildered moments before they can gather themselves and calm their equally rattled neighbors and limp back to their proper places. I wait numbly for this confusion to pass, for all my little people to find their homes again.

And the pain, when it comes, is a sort of pure thing, focused and clean. An angry fist connects with unresisting flesh and that flesh recoils, shrinks, bulges back with blood and shock. Pain chases thought and reason away; pain is something concrete and undeniable. It helps restore order.

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