PART 1

“If you spill that water one more time, I’ll make you stay on your knees until that baby is born!“

I heard my mother’s voice before I had even stepped fully into the house.

I had come home unexpectedly around noon to retrieve a confidential file I needed for a board meeting. I hadn’t called ahead. I assumed my wife, Emma Brooks, was resting upstairs. She was eight months pregnant and her doctor had ordered her to stay off her feet whenever possible.

What I saw through the glass wall stole the air from my lungs.

Emma was kneeling on the cold marble floor.

Her maternity dress was soaked, her swollen hands submerged in a basin of steaming water mixed with ginger slices.

Across from her, my mother, Margaret Brooks, lounged comfortably in a leather armchair, casually eating pecan pie while forcing my pregnant wife to wash her feet.

“Harder,” my mother ordered without looking up.

“You’re living off my son’s money. The least you can do is show some gratitude.”

Emma tried to shift her weight, but she lost her balance.

Instead of helping her…

My mother lifted one foot and kicked her squarely in the side of her belly.

I don’t remember dropping my briefcase.

I only remember hearing it slam against the hardwood floor.

Emma cried out.

A wave of rage unlike anything I had ever felt rushed through me.