Although I was suffering from labor pains, my mother-in-law and my husband’s entire family closed the door and went on a trip… when they returned the next day and didn’t find me, they were distraught to see a sign that said: “house sold”.

A taxi horn blared from the driveway, and Gertrude waved her hand as if she were shooing away a bothersome insect. “The car is here, so let us hurry before we miss our flight, because she is old enough to call her own taxi to the hospital.”

Gertrude marched out, the sound of her suitcase wheels clicking against the floor like a hammer striking my heart. Felicity followed her cheerfully, leaving only Dominic standing hesitantly in the doorway for a single, fleeting second.

The doubt in his eyes vanished instantly as his cowardly nature took over. “I am sorry, Valerie, but I cannot contradict my mother, so please take good care of yourself while we are gone.”

He turned and dragged the final suitcase out of the house, leaving me frozen in disbelief as tears streamed down my face. I could not grasp how the man I had sacrificed everything for could treat me with such calculated cruelty.

“Lock both the locks, Dominic, just to be safe,” Gertrude’s voice floated in from the porch. “We do not want her following us to the airport to cause a scene, so let her give birth in peace inside.”