Beneath the loose soil near my right shoulder, my phone sat inside a freezer bag with the microphone uncovered and the screen dark.
I had slipped it there before they dragged me outside.
It was not a perfect hiding place.
It was only the hiding place I had been able to reach.
My right hand was buried too, but they had left enough space around my wrist for me to move one finger.
They had not done that out of mercy.
They simply believed I was too frightened to use it.
Every few hours, I found the record button by touch.
Morning.
Sometime near noon.
After the porch light came on.
I could never see the screen, so I learned the phone by pressure and vibration.
A short buzz meant the recording had started.
Another meant I had stopped it.
Sometimes I was not sure whether I had pressed the correct place, and I had to resist the urge to try again.
Too much movement would draw their attention.
Different files held different voices, but the laughter barely changed.
My husband explained that a wife who followed directions would never end up in the dirt.
His mother asked whether the baby could feel me being stubborn.
Mara said the insects were probably harmless, although she stepped back whenever one landed near her sandal.
They spoke as though I were not close enough to hear them.
Then they spoke directly to me, raising their voices in case the neighbors might notice and need to be convinced this was somehow normal.
My husband was good at changing his voice depending on who might be listening.
Around strangers, he sounded patient.
Around his family, he sounded amused.
When we were alone, he spoke quietly enough that every threat could later be described as a misunderstanding.
The phone was not there to rescue me.
It was there because my husband had spent months telling people I became confused when I was upset, and I needed something that could remember without shaking.
He had practiced that story until it sounded reasonable.
If I repeated something cruel he had said, he claimed I had misunderstood his tone.
