On our wedding day, he squeezed my hand and whispered, “No matter what happens, I only need you and our children.”
At the time, it sounded like a promise worth building a life on.
When my daughter, Isla, was born, everything changed faster than I could process, and the first crack came from Lorraine standing at my hospital bed with disappointment carved into her face. She said coldly, “This family name will end with you, because a woman who only produces daughters is useless to us.”
I smiled through humiliation because I did not yet know how to defend myself against cruelty that arrived so early.
From that moment, nothing I did was ever enough in her eyes, and Adrian slowly became someone who bent whichever way her approval pushed him. He stopped defending me, started coming home late, and eventually smiled at his phone with a softness I no longer recognized.
One afternoon, his phone lit up on the kitchen table while I was wiping juice, and I saw a message that froze me in place. It said, “Our son is kicking so hard today, I wish you were here.”
When I confronted him, he did not deny anything and said flatly, “She understands me better than you do.”