Chapter 1
I came home two weeks early and found my seven-month-pregnant wife on her knees, scrubbing the living-room floor.
For one second, I thought I had walked into the wrong house.
Anna was wearing an old gray T-shirt stretched tightly over her stomach. Her hair was tied back badly, like she had done it with shaking hands.
A bucket of dirty water sat beside her.
My mother was on the couch watching television.
“Anna?”
My wife froze.
She slowly turned toward me.
That was when I saw the red mark across her face.
Everything inside me went cold.
“What happened?”
Mom barely looked away from the television.
“She spilled my coffee,” she said. “I’m teaching her respect.”
I stared at her.
Then at Anna.
My wife’s eyes filled with tears.
“She slapped me when I tried to stand.”
Mom finally turned off the television.
“Oh, please. Don’t make this dramatic. I barely touched her.”
Anna pushed one hand against the floor and tried to rise.
She winced.
I rushed forward.
“Don’t move.”
“I’m okay,” she whispered.
“No, you’re not.”
Mom stood.
“She has been lazy since you left. You have no idea what I’ve dealt with.”
I looked at her.
“You’ve dealt with?”
“Yes. Your wife sleeps late. She complains about her back. She leaves dishes in the sink.”
“She’s seven months pregnant.”
“Pregnancy isn’t a disability.”
Anna flinched when Mom stepped closer.
That tiny movement told me more than any explanation could.
This was not the first time.
I moved between them.
“How long?”
Anna lowered her eyes.
“Anna.”
Her lips trembled.
“Since the week after you left.”
My stomach dropped.
I had been working out of state for six weeks.
Six weeks.
Mom scoffed.
“She’s trying to turn you against me.”
Then she raised her hand toward Anna again.
I caught her wrist.
“Don’t.”
She jerked against my grip.
“How dare you grab your mother?”
“How dare you touch my wife?”
She slapped at me with her free hand.
Everything happened fast.
I knocked her hand away, and when she came at Anna again, I forced her backward onto the couch.
“Enough!”
The room went silent.
Mom stared at me as if she didn’t recognize me.
“You assaulted me.”
“You assaulted my pregnant wife.”
“She’s lying!”
Anna suddenly gasped behind me.
I turned.
She had both hands around her stomach.
“Anna?”
Her face had gone pale.
“My stomach.”
I dropped beside her.
“What is it?”
“It hurts.”
Panic hit me harder than anything my mother had said.
I grabbed my phone.
Mom stood again.
“Don’t call anyone. She always exaggerates.”
I looked at her.
“If you come one step closer, I’m calling the police too.”
Her expression changed.
Just slightly.
Fear.
That was when I knew there was more.
I called 911.
Within minutes, paramedics were checking Anna while two police officers separated my mother from us.
Mom began shouting.
“This is my son’s house!”
One officer asked, “Ma’am, did you strike your daughter-in-law?”
“No.”
Anna looked at me.
Then she whispered, “Yes.”
Mom’s face twisted.
“You ungrateful little liar.”
The officer stepped between them.
“Ma’am, calm down.”
“I gave up everything for my son!”
Anna grabbed my sleeve.
“Mark.”
I knelt beside her.
“What?”
“There’s something you need to see.”
Before she could explain, the paramedic interrupted.
“Sir, we need to take your wife in. She’s having contractions.”
My heart stopped.
“She’s only twenty-nine weeks.”
“I know.”
I lifted Anna carefully and helped them get her onto the stretcher.
As they moved toward the front door, I heard Mom screaming behind me.
“You choose her over me and you’ll regret it!”
I turned.
Two officers were placing handcuffs around her wrists.
“You made that choice for me.”
At the hospital, doctors rushed Anna into maternity triage.
I stood outside the curtain while nurses attached monitors to her stomach.
A doctor came in twenty minutes later.
“Your baby’s heartbeat looks stable right now, but your wife is showing signs of physical exhaustion and dehydration.”
I stared at Anna.
“Dehydration?”
She looked away.
The doctor’s voice sharpened.
“When did you last eat a full meal?”
Anna hesitated.
“This morning.”
“What did you eat?”
“Toast.”
“And yesterday?”
Silence.
I felt sick.
“Anna.”
She started crying.
“Your mother said groceries were too expensive.”
I could barely speak.
“There was food in the house.”
“She locked the pantry.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“She said I was gaining too much weight.”
The doctor looked at me, then quietly left us alone.
I sat beside the bed.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Anna wiped her eyes.
“I tried.”
“What do you mean?”
“I called.”
“I never got—”
Then I remembered.
For the last month, Mom had kept telling me Anna was tired.
Anna was sleeping.
Anna had lost her phone.
Anna didn’t want to talk.
I had believed her.
My own mother.
Anna reached toward the small hospital bag a nurse had brought from the ambulance.
“There’s more.”
She pulled out an old phone.
The screen was cracked.
“I found it in the garage yesterday. She thought she destroyed it.”
“What’s on it?”
Anna pressed the power button.
A video appeared.
The timestamp was four days earlier.
My mother stood in our kitchen.
Anna was sitting at the table.
Mom slammed a plate down.
“You don’t deserve my son.”
Anna’s voice came from behind the camera.
“Please leave me alone.”
Then Mom leaned closer.
“When that baby comes, I’ll make sure he understands what kind of woman his mother is.”
The video ended.
I felt something inside me break.
But Anna wasn’t finished.
“There are twelve videos.”
“Twelve?”
“And recordings.”
She swallowed.
“One of them is about the baby.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What about the baby?”
Anna looked directly into my eyes.
“She said she already spoke to a lawyer.”
“A lawyer for what?”
May you like
Her next words changed everything.
“She plans to prove I’m an unfit mother and take our son after he’s born.”
