Chapter 1
When my husband came home, he found me eight months pregnant, on my knees scrubbing the floor while his mother’s shoe pressed down on my hand. The look on his face changed instantly.
My name is Emily, and I was eight months pregnant with our first child.
My doctor had ordered me to rest because I was already having painful contractions.
But my mother-in-law, Patricia, called that “an excuse to be lazy.”
That afternoon, she deliberately spilled a bucket of dirty water across the kitchen floor.
“Clean it.”
I stared at her.
“Patricia, I can barely bend down.”
She threw a rag at my feet.
“You live in my son’s house, don’t you?”
The house was actually mine and Daniel’s, but arguing with her always made things worse.
I slowly lowered myself onto my knees.
My back immediately started hurting.
“Faster,” Patricia snapped.
“Please… I need to sit down.”
I reached for the counter to pull myself up.
That was when Patricia stepped on my hand.
I cried out.
“Stop pretending you’re fragile.”
“Get your foot off me!”
She pressed harder.
Tears filled my eyes as I protected my stomach with my other arm.
Then the front door opened.
“Emily?”
Daniel had come home early from work.
He walked into the kitchen and froze.
His briefcase dropped to the floor.
“Mom… what are you doing?”
Patricia quickly moved her foot.
“She was being disrespectful.”
Daniel looked at my swollen hand.
Then at the dirty rag beside my knees.
Something snapped in him.
He rushed forward and slapped his mother across the face.
Patricia stumbled backward in shock.
“You hit your own mother?”
“You were hurting my pregnant wife!”
Patricia immediately began crying.
“She’s manipulating you, Daniel!”
He ignored her and helped me stand.
Then Patricia screamed, “Fine! Ask your precious wife why she’s really refusing to sign those papers!”
Daniel stopped.
“What papers?”
I looked at Patricia.
May you like
She smiled through her tears.
And slowly pulled a property-transfer document from her purse with Daniel’s signature already at the bottom.
