Chapter 1 - The Morning Hannah Finally Hit Back
The contraction bent Hannah Shaw over the foyer console before she could reach the front door.
She locked both hands around the edge of the marble top and breathed through her teeth.
“Derek... my bag.”
Her husband stood six feet away in the living room doorway.
He didn’t move.
For three weeks, Hannah had been waking every ninety minutes, carrying thirty extra pounds on a five-foot-three frame, barely able to roll over without pain. Derek had responded as if pregnancy were an extended vacation she had designed specifically to inconvenience him.
That morning, something in him had gone uglier.
He crossed the foyer and grabbed her braid.
Hannah cried out as he jerked her upright.
His palm struck her face.
Once.
Hard enough to send her sideways.
Before she could regain her balance, Derek caught both shoulders and shoved her backward onto the padded bench beneath the staircase.
Her belly never struck anything, but the jolt stole her breath.
“Nine months of sleeping, whining, and eating,” Derek said, “and you’re still completely useless.”
Another contraction tightened across her abdomen.
Hannah pressed one hand beneath it.
“Please. They’re four minutes apart.”
Derek laughed.
“If you have enough breath to scream, you have enough breath to walk to the hospital yourself.”
He seized the navy labor bag she had packed two weeks earlier.
Hannah watched him throw it through the open front door.
It landed on the porch.
Then he kicked it farther toward the steps.
“If you can scream, go deliver the baby at the hospital yourself!”
Hannah pushed herself upright.
Her knees shook.
Derek raised his hand again.
Something changed.
Not in him.
In her.
She caught his wrist.
For once Derek looked surprised enough that he didn’t react.
Hannah slapped him across the face.
The sound cracked through the foyer.
Derek stared at her.
“You turned this home into hell,” she said. “I will never bring my baby back here.”
She reached the doorway and gripped the frame while another wave of pain passed through her.
Behind her, Derek started forward.
Hannah turned.
“After I give birth, my father is coming to talk to you. You terrible son-in-law who never knew how good you had it.”
Derek stopped.
The anger disappeared so quickly that Hannah almost wondered whether she had imagined it.
His face went pale.
Not embarrassed.
Not irritated.
Afraid.
That frightened her in a completely different way.
Hannah picked up the labor bag.
Then she walked far enough down the driveway that the house could no longer block her from the neighbors.
She took out her phone and called 911.
Before giving the dispatcher her address, she looked back.
Derek was still standing inside the doorway.
May you like
He had not followed her.
And for the first time in months, Hannah wondered whether her husband was afraid of her father for a reason she had never been told.
