At my divorce hearing, I was eight months pregnant when the first sharp pain tore through my belly.
It was not a cramp. It was not nerves. It was a deep, twisting pain that made my vision blur and forced both my hands to clamp around the edge of the wooden table in front of me.
I gasped.
Across the aisle, my husband, Blake Whitmore, leaned back in his chair like he had been waiting for this exact moment.
My mother-in-law, Patricia Whitmore, gave a little laugh.
“She’s faking it again,” Patricia said loudly enough for half the courtroom to hear.
My cheeks burned. I tried to breathe through the pain, but another wave came, stronger this time, tightening across my stomach like a steel band.
“I’m not faking,” I whispered.
Blake smirked.
“She always pulls this stunt to delay court,” he told his attorney. “Every time she doesn’t like how things are going, suddenly there’s an emergency.”
His words spread through the room like smoke.
Even Judge Harold Whitman looked at me over his reading glasses with doubt. He was an older man with silver hair, a stern face, and the kind of tired patience that made everyone in his courtroom sit up straighter.
“Mrs. Whitmore,” he said, “are you able to continue?”
