Every morning, my husband drags me out and beats me because I cannot give him a son… Until one day, I fainted in the middle of our yard from the excruciating pain. He rushed me to the hospital, pretending I had fallen down the stairs. But unexpectedly, when the doctor handed him the results, the X-ray left him dead silent.
It happened every single morning.
My husband, Ramon, would drag me into the middle of the yard and beat me to vent his anger, all for a single reason: “I brought you into this house, yet you don’t know how to give me a son.”
At first, it was just a slap. Then came the kicks, the stomping. Eventually, the blows spared no part of my body, not even the most private areas.
The neighbors would close their windows when they heard the noise. My mother-in-law would stand inside the house, clutching her rosary, mumbling prayers but doing nothing. As for me, I grew used to curling up to take the beating, just hoping he would finish quickly so I could get up and cook the rice.
I had given birth to two daughters. Both were considered a “burden” (pabigat). Every time he saw them, he would hit me harder, as if the fault lay entirely with me.
That day started just like any other morning.
He beat me while shouting curses. My ears rang, and my vision went dark. With the final blow, I collapsed onto the concrete floor of the yard and lost consciousness.
When I woke up, I was lying on a stretcher. Ramon stood nearby, wearing a rare look of concern. He told the doctor quickly: “My wife slipped and fell down the stairs.”
I had no strength left to speak. I just closed my eyes.
The doctor sent me for a general scan, suspecting severe internal trauma. I was wheeled into a room where cold white lights shone directly on my face.
About an hour later, the doctor called Ramon out into the hallway first. I was lying inside the room, but I could still hear their voices through the door.
The doctor’s voice dropped low: “Sir, can you come in here and look at this scan?”
There was no answer. Just a few minutes later, the door burst open. Ramon walked in, his face as pale as a sheet, holding the X-ray film. His hands were trembling so much he could barely hold it. He looked at me, his lips moving, but he couldn’t utter a single word.
The doctor followed behind him, speaking very slowly and clearly: “Your wife has suffered soft tissue injuries from repeated external force. But the issue we need to discuss is… the result of the supplementary examination we ran on you.”
Ramon spun around: “Examination… what examination?”
The doctor pointed to the X-ray and the medical file: “You suffer from congenital infertility. You are physically incapable of fathering a child—boy or girl.”
The room went dead silent. I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling. My mind went blank, but then, a strange feeling washed over me—relief.
It turned out that for all these years, I had been beaten, humiliated, and treated like a useless object… All for a fault that was never mine to begin with.
Ramon stood there, frozen like a statue. The film dropped from his hands to the floor. He stammered: “That’s impossible… it can’t be… you must be mistaken, Doc…”
The doctor didn’t argue. He simply added one final sentence: “The two children you are raising… are not yours because she ‘didn’t know how to give birth.’ They are not yours because you never had the ability to reproduce.”
That evening, the police arrived at the hospital. The doctor had made the call. The mix of old and fresh wounds on my body could not be explained by a simple fall down the stairs.
Ramon was taken in for questioning that very night. As for me, for the first time in many years, I lay on a hospital bed without fearing the coming morning.
There are some truths that don’t need to be shouted. Just one X-ray film, Was enough to overturn a lifetime of blame.