Diego had driven himself home, but it was well into the afternoon when he finally arrived. His wife, Suzanna, met him at the door. "You know I was about to call the police." The light-skinned Hispanic woman was holding a cup of coffee while wearing a bathrobe. She stood at nearly the same height as her husband, staring down the former Master Sergeant.
"I'm sure."
Suzanna threw her coffee in his face as she shoved her husband inside their mansion.
Diego's hands were trembling. The coffee had not been boiling hot, but the shock of her action was enough to throw him off guard.
"Well, I know you're not above doing some really messed up shit behind my back!"
After two decades of marriage, Diego was used to her anger. "I apologize." Without another word, he made his way to the bathroom. He looked in the medicine cabinet for his anxiety and pain medications. But when he reached for his pills, Diego made the horrifying discovery: every bottle was empty. "Suzanna, do you know what happened to my pills?"
"I hid them."
"You hid my medications?"
"Yes, I did," she answered in a matter-of-fact tone. Suzanna walked over to a pile of blankets that she then dumped on the floor. "You will be sleeping on the sofa tonight and for the foreseeable future." It was clear she expected her husband to make his own bed.
That night, Diego suffered a seizure. At least he assumed that was what happened. He awoke the next morning wearing clothing soaked with urine. His head was pounding with a migraine, his body shivering with chills.
Suzanna appeared with a breakfast tray containing four Valium pills and a steaming cup of coffee. "Take these. We have a meeting in an hour with a major landowner from Montana. I can't have you looking like trash."
Diego struggled to sit up. Having been left alone in the living room, the night prior, he had drunk himself to sleep. So now the room was spinning.
He flinched as his wife held his hand. "I love you, Diego. You know I don't mean to hurt you. You're all I have." She kissed him softly on his cheek. "Now go make yourself presentable."
Diego took a shower. As the cold water hit his face his eyes filled with tears. This wasn't what he wanted; to suffer through a loveless marriage. But he owed it to her to stay. He'd said his vows before God, and he needed to stand by those vows. He knew her heart was filled with sadness for the loss of their son. His role, as a husband, was to carry the weight of her pain. No matter the cost.
The next few days went by without incident. Suzanna kept his medications in her private safe and doled them out as she saw fit. This was all on the condition that Diego did not leave the house for any reason.
He was allowed on his computer only as needed. Both his phone and email accounts were being monitored. So Diego spent the majority of his time in his home gym, surviving on bottled water, vitamins and protein powder.
A week went by. Diego was becoming all too aware of the declining state of his health. His only hope for salvation was the fact that his student, Sara, knew his medical appointment schedule. Her boyfriend, Johnny, was a paramedic. Eventually, the young couple would come to Diego's mansion to check in on him.
When Diego took off his shirt to begin on the bench press machine, he noticed a series of mysterious bruises on his stomach. The dark marks were painful to the touch. Had Suzanna attacked him as he slept? He didn't want to consider such a possibility. Diego got on the machine and set the weight. He started his reps, feeling the strain in his muscles when suddenly the world went black.
Diego awoke in a hospital bed. As he opened his eyes he could feel a woman's hand. He instinctively flinched in terror.
"It's me, it's Sara."
Diego breathed a sigh of relief. His student Sara was by his side. Her long blonde hair was pulled in to a ponytail, highlighting her doll-like features.
Johnny stood in the corner of the room. His expression was one of frustration and anger. It was clear he had been the one to comfort Sara as Diego lay unconscious. "We're going to get you out of here. You're going to stay with my cousin Remy for a while."
Diego nodded. "How did I get here?"
Johnny sighed. "Suzanna wasn't going to let us in the house, but she got a little worried when even she didn't know where you were. She let us in to go search for you, and when we found you in the gym me and Sara: we kind of kidnapped you."
Sara rolled her eyes. "What Johnny is trying to say is, we left without telling Suzanna we had located you."
