In the Last Weeks of Pregnancy, My Husband Kicked Me Out of the House, but His Mother’s Call Put a Strange Fear on Eric’s Face

Eric slammed the door so hard that the small body of the infant clutched in his hands startled me, and I pressed a hand to my abdomen from the pain. I had had a cesarean operation a few days earlier, but at that moment I no longer cared about the burning of the incision. I only heard how his footsteps moved away down the corridor, until the laughter of his mistress disappeared behind the door.

My daughter, Chloe, was pressed to my chest. She wore a white cotton hat with a crescent moon embroidered on it. Barbara, Eric’s mother, had brought it to her while she was still in the hospital. The little metal bell on the hat tinkled almost imperceptibly with every movement.

As soon as we arrived home, Chloe’s breathing became difficult. A strong smell of medicine hung in the room, while the machine lit a red light every few seconds.

“We will need another dose,” the doctor told me over the phone. “This treatment cannot be stopped.”

I looked at the bank account.

Zero.

Our savings, which we had been collecting for years, had completely disappeared. Only one message remained: the money had been transferred to a foreign account I did not recognize.

I called Eric. He answered on the third ring.

“Chloe needs medicine,” I said, unable to hide the trembling in my voice. “You took all the money. Please, just this once, act like a father.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong, Mariam. You wanted the child.”

“She is our child.”

“No, she is your responsibility. I have a new life.”

I heard a woman’s laughter behind him.

“Eric, tell her not to come here anymore,” she said.

Eric chuckled.

“Did you hear? Find someone who really cares about you.”

That same evening I went by taxi to his house. My wound burned with every step, and I hid Chloe in the blanket as if I were protecting her not from the wind, but from her own father.

His mistress opened the door. She was wearing Eric’s shirt and had glittery polish on her fingers.

“You really came?” she laughed loudly. “With a baby?”

Eric appeared behind her and looked at Chloe for only one second.

“I have a different life now,” he said. “Don’t come here anymore.”

“Eric, she is your daughter.”

“And you chose to give birth to her yourself.”

The door closed.

I collapsed on the cold floor of the entrance hall. The little bell attached to Chloe’s hat pressed against my heart and tinkled with every breath. For the first time I realized that help was no longer enough for me. I needed a person whom Eric could not frighten, deceive, or force to close her eyes.

After returning home, I took the phone in my hand and dialed a number I had not touched for months.

“Barbara,” I said when she answered. “I don’t know whether you remember me, but Chloe needs help.”

A long silence fell on the other side. Then I heard Barbara’s voice, strangely stern and alert:

“Mariam, lock the door and draw the curtains over the windows. Now do not interrupt me in what I am going to tell you. Eric does not know that I still have this…”

Barbara’s voice sounded to me as if she were standing beside me in the room.

“What do you have?” I asked.

“Evidence. And we have very little time.”

It was eleven o’clock at night. Chloe was sleeping in my lap, while the tube of the machine trembled near her little nose.

“Did you call Eric?” I asked.

“No. First you must come to me. Do not come out alone.”

“I can barely stand after the operation.”

“Then I will come.”

Twenty minutes later, headlights appeared below. Barbara came in with a dark wooden box in her hands. It was the first time I saw her fingers tremble.

“Eric’s father kept this,” she said. “Before his death he told me that if my son ever betrayed his family, I should hand it over to you.”

“Why now?”

Barbara placed the box on the table, but did not open it.

“Because today Eric withdrew another sum from the bank. And this sum is no longer only your savings.”

Someone knocked on the door three times.

Chloe startled.

Barbara turned toward the door.

“Do not open it,” she whispered to me.

The knocking sounded a second time, more strongly.

Barbara pressed the box to her chest and looked into my eyes.

“If that is Eric, today he will learn for the first time whom he has gone against…”

Barbara opened the box. The smell of old paper and lavender spread through the room. Inside lay a flash drive, three bank statements, and a sealed envelope on which it was handwritten: “After Chloe’s birth.”

There was another knock at the door.

“It’s the police,” a man’s voice sounded. “Mrs. Mariam, you must open the door for us.”

Barbara opened it immediately. Two police officers and Barbara’s lawyer, Lasha, stood on the threshold.

“Eric reported that you are keeping the child in danger,” one of the police officers said.

I hugged Chloe more tightly.

“She received treatment all day. The danger was created for us not by me, but by her father.”

Lasha spread the bank statements out on the table.

“These documents show that Eric transferred the joint savings at his own will. But something more serious is written here. In your name, he signed a document as if you had refused the child’s medical insurance.”

My blood froze.

“I did not sign it.”

Barbara handed the flash drive to Lasha.

“Now listen.”

Lasha played the recording. First Eric’s voice was heard, then his mistress’s.

“If we cancel the insurance, we will withdraw the money faster,” Eric was saying.

“Mariam will not find out anything,” the woman answered.

“The child is still her problem. I have left this family.”

The recording continued for several seconds. Then Eric added with a laugh:

“When the child leaves the hospital, I will blame everything on her. Even the court will not be able to force me to return to my old life.”

Silence fell over the room. The police officer lowered his eyes. Lasha tightened his jaw. And Barbara placed a hand on my shoulder for the first time.

“This is only the beginning,” she said.

Lasha opened the sealed envelope. Inside was a document made out in Chloe’s name and a letter from Eric’s father.

“Her grandfather left her a fund before her birth,” Barbara told me. “But access to the fund would open only if both parents signed. Eric has already tried to withdraw the money with a false signature.”

At that moment my phone rang. The number was unknown.

“Mariam,” Eric said, “if you do not give up custody of the child, I will tell everyone that you are mentally unstable. And tomorrow morning I will come with my lawyer.”

Lasha looked toward me.

“Answer and turn it on speaker.”

I pressed the call button.

Eric did not know that this time every word of his was already being listened to not only by me, but also by the person who had much more than he did in her hands…