Evelyn walked in. She looked immaculate, as always. Crisp designer suit, perfect hair, a hard expression on her face. She didn’t greet me. She walked straight to the back door, locked the deadbolt, and then walked over to the laundry nook.

I watched in total confusion as she picked up my heavy clothes iron, carried it to the kitchen counter, and plugged it into the wall.

“Evelyn? What are you doing?” I asked, pushing myself back from the table slightly. My heart was already starting to beat faster. Something was deeply, deeply wrong.
She didn’t answer right away. She opened her expensive leather purse, pulled out a single sheet of paper, and tossed it onto the table directly in front of me. “Read it,” she commanded.

I looked down. It was an official Department of Defense letterhead. The words “Casualty Notification” jumped off the page, followed by Jack’s full rank and name. The room started to spin. My ears rang with a high-pitched whine. The air was suddenly sucked out of the room, and I felt a physical pain in my chest so sharp I thought my heart had actually stopped beating. Jack was gone. The love of my life, the father of my baby, was dead.

Before the first sob could even tear its way out of my throat, Evelyn was moving. She unplugged the now-steaming iron, holding it firmly by the handle, and stepped right up to my chair.
I looked up at her through a blur of instant, blinding tears. There was no grief on her face. There was only a terrifying, calculated triumph. She slid a thick stack of legal documents onto the table next to the fake casualty notice.

“Sign the full custody papers for the child right now, or you both burn,” she whispered.

She wasn’t yelling. She was entirely calm, which made it so much worse.
She brought the iron down. She held the steaming metal plate just inches from my pregnant belly. It was so close I could feel the intense heat radiating through my thin maternity shirt, warning my skin of the agony that was about to come.