Chapter 2: Secrets No Longer Hidden
At the hospital, doctors examined Megan for nearly three hours.
When the obstetrician finally returned, her expression was serious.
"The baby is stable," she said. "But your wife has suffered repeated physical trauma."
The words hit me like a freight train.
Repeated.
Not accidental.
Repeated.
Megan finally found the strength to tell me everything.
Whenever I left for work, my mother would let herself into our apartment with the spare key.
At first, the visits were just cruel words.
She criticized Megan's cooking.
Her appearance.
Her family.
Then the insults became shoves.
One afternoon, Megan refused to sign paperwork transferring our apartment into my mother's name.
That was when my mother kicked her legs several times, warning her never to tell me.
"If you destroy my relationship with my son," she'd whispered, "I'll make sure he never believes you."
Megan stayed silent because she feared the stress would hurt the baby.
She also believed I would choose my mother over her.
Those words broke me more than anything else.
I took her hand.
"I should have trusted you."
She squeezed my fingers.
May you like
"I just wanted our baby to have a father who wasn't torn apart."
I lowered my head and cried beside her hospital bed.
