Chapter 1 - The Last Slap
The slap landed before Emily could turn her head.
Her cheek exploded with heat. Her shoulder clipped the edge of the kitchen table, and one hand flew to her seven-month-pregnant belly.
“Don’t you ever talk back to me in my son’s house,” Margaret Hale snapped.
Emily stared at her mother-in-law, breathing hard. A broken plate glittered across the tile behind them. The soup Emily had made for dinner was still steaming on the stove.
“This is my house too,” Emily said.
Margaret laughed. “You married into it. That doesn’t make you important.”
“Please leave.”
“What?”
“I said leave.”
Margaret’s face changed.
For months, her cruelty had come in small pieces—an insult while Daniel was at work, a shoulder shoved in a hallway, fingers digging into Emily’s arm hard enough to leave purple marks. Every time, Margaret smiled afterward and said Emily was too sensitive.
Today she stopped pretending.
She grabbed Emily by the hair.
Emily cried out and caught the table with both hands.
“Let go!”
“You are useless,” Margaret hissed near her ear. “Daniel could replace you tomorrow.”
Then Margaret shoved Emily’s forehead down against the wooden table.
Pain flashed white behind Emily’s eyes.
Something moved inside her belly.
Fear turned cold.
Margaret lifted her hand again.
Emily caught her wrist.
Margaret blinked. “Let go.”
“No.”
“You little—”
Emily pushed her away.
Margaret stumbled into a chair, stared at Emily in disbelief, then charged forward.
This time Emily blocked her, shoved her back, and when Margaret raised her hand again, Emily slapped her once across the face.
The sound cracked through the kitchen.
“Don’t touch me again!” Emily screamed.
Margaret’s mouth fell open.
Then the front door unlocked.
“Emily?”
Daniel stepped inside carrying a grocery bag.
He froze.
His wife stood beside the table, shaking and crying, one hand over her stomach. His mother leaned against the counter, holding her cheek.
Margaret pointed instantly.
“She attacked me!”
Daniel looked at Emily.
For one terrible second, she saw confusion in his face.
Then his eyes moved to the red handprint on her cheek, the swelling above her eyebrow, the shattered plate, the chair knocked sideways.
“Mom,” he said quietly. “What did you do?”
Margaret’s confidence flickered.
Emily swallowed.
“She’s been hurting me for months.”
Daniel went still.
“Months?”
Emily nodded, tears falling now.
“I kept quiet because I thought I was protecting you.”
A sharp cramp tightened across her abdomen.
Emily gasped and doubled over.
Daniel dropped the groceries.
“Emily?”
Another cramp hit.
She looked down.
A thin line of blood had appeared on the front of her pale maternity dress.
Daniel’s face drained of color.
May you like
“Call 911,” Emily whispered.
And Margaret took one slow step backward toward the door.
