Every night, my husband dragged me into the garage of our home in a quiet American suburb, pressed a glowing cigarette butt against my pregnant belly, and screamed, “I’ll burn this baby to death—and you with it! I already have someone else. You and that kid are only standing in the way of me taking everything!”

The lighter clicked once.

My body reacted before my mind did.

I folded both arms over my pregnant stomach and backed into the workbench, knocking a jar of loose screws onto the concrete floor. They scattered beneath the shelves with a noise that should have carried through the entire house.

No one came.

Grant stood between me and the interior door of our garage, holding the lighter beneath an unlit cigarette. The small flame sharpened the anger in his face.

Behind him, his mother, Evelyn, closed the blinds over the narrow side window.

It was twenty-eight degrees outside in Dublin, Ohio, and my bare feet had gone numb against the floor. I wore the gray sweatshirt Grant had thrown at me after taking away the coat I had tried to leave in.

At thirty-one weeks pregnant, I could no longer hide how difficult it was to stand.

“Sign the papers, Claire,” he said.

A document lay on the workbench beside my hand. The top page transferred my share of our house into a family trust controlled by Evelyn.

Underneath it was a revised estate plan naming Grant as the sole beneficiary of everything I owned.

“I already told you no.”

Grant lit the cigarette.

The smell reached me before the smoke did.

“Then we stay here until you understand.”

Evelyn glanced toward the closed garage door.

“Keep your voice down. The Carters are home.”

Nia Carter lived next door. Her upstairs bedroom faced our driveway, but Grant had spent months convincing her that I was resting through a difficult pregnancy and didn’t want visitors.

Whenever Nia left soup or fresh bread on the porch, Evelyn carried it inside and told me the gesture was pity.

Grant stepped closer.

“You think I’m going to lose this house because you’ve suddenly decided to become difficult?”

“It was my aunt’s house before we were married.”

“And I’ve paid for it ever since.”

“You paid the mortgage after we refinanced it. That doesn’t make it yours.”

His face tightened.

The refinancing had been his idea. So had the large life insurance policy he had called responsible planning before the baby arrived.

I had believed him then.

I had also believed the late meetings were about his sales job.

I stopped believing that after finding hotel charges and messages from a woman named Cassie.

Grant followed my gaze to the document.

“Sign it, and this ends.”

“You mean you let me leave?”

Evelyn answered for him.

“You’ve made yourself medically unstable. Nobody is going to let you take a newborn anywhere.”

She said it calmly, as though she were discussing a change in the weather.

For three months, she had moved into our guest room under the excuse of helping with the pregnancy. Instead, she counted my medications, listened outside my calls, and told Grant whenever I packed a bag.

Then my phone disappeared.

Then my car keys.

Then my access to the bank account.

Grant raised the cigarette near my face.

“You’re going to sign, or you’re going to have another one of your episodes.”

I looked down.

Near my right foot sat a dented metal paint can.

I had placed it there that afternoon while Evelyn was upstairs.

Grant thought I had been cleaning.

I shifted my heel until it touched the can.

“Take the house,” I whispered. “Take the savings. I won’t fight you.”

Evelyn’s mouth softened with satisfaction.