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In that era, many people abandoned baby girls. My daughter, then just a tiny bundle, was carelessly thrown on the ground. Even rats scurried nearby. She was barely larger than those rodents, seemingly on the verge of being swallowed by the darkness. I rushed over and scooped her up.

Under the moonlight, my daughter stopped crying. She opened her eyes wide and gazed at me—unblinking. I carried her home.

In those days, survival was hard for a single mother with a daughter. Thus, I returned to the very household I’d tried to escape. Late that night, my husband came home. I showed him the baby, tentatively asking, 'Can we keep her? Be her parents?' He stared at me with the same feral hunger I’d seen in the rats’ eyes. Though he agreed, that night he brutalized me more viciously, then forced cloth strips into my abdomen to fake pregnancy.

Everyone believed our daughter was biologically ours. This suited my husband—it hid his impotence.

Under my care, my daughter blossomed into a chubby-cheeked toddler. She’d throw her arms around my neck, plant sticky kisses on my cheek, and lisp, 'Mama, I wuv you SO MUCH!' My heart melted. How could such an angelic being exist?

Yet my husband dared strike her. Drunk one night, he stormed in cursing. I’d learned to hustle our girl to her room, tucking a doll in her arms before facing him. 'Whore! Ignoring me—got a lover?' His impotence bred paranoia. A slap cracked across my face. He yanked my hair, smashing my skull against the wall, ranting about infidelity.

Then my five-year-old charged in. Tiny but fierce, she clung to his leg crying, 'Stop hurting Mama!' Without hesitation, he kicked her airborne. Her wails enraged him. He grabbed her ankles and—before I could intervene—slammed her headfirst into the floor.

The hospital vigil blurred until the doctor said, 'She’ll recover.' Only then did I breathe again. 'You’re lucky,' he chided. 'This could’ve been fatal.'

Clutching my daughter, I sobbed until my ribs ached. That night, as she slept hospitalized, I made a decision.

We returned home to her father’s sneer: 'Finally back?' My quiet 'Yes' carried iron resolve.

Soon after, providence answered—my husband drowned drunk in the tub. Authorities called it accidental, but his parents accused me. Let them. I’d never reveal how I filled that tub, massaged his temples, soothed him to sleep, then watched him slide beneath the water.

To the world, I was asleep with our daughter when I 'found' him. Police arrived to my trembling child. 'Hush,' I crooned, 'Mama’s here.' Never again would we fear abuse.

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[Epilogue: Daughter’s Perspective]

I’ve known I’m adopted since overhearing his rages. Mama thinks she hid it, but I pieced it together—the abandoned infant, the rats, her rescue. She’s fierce: when a bully targeted me, Mama stalked his mother, screaming, 'Harm my girl again, I’ll make your son orphaned!' Others fear her temper. Not me. Her wrath is armor. Even against him.