I felt a tear slide down my cheek, grieving for a child I never even knew I was carrying, but mostly grieving for the years of my life I had surrendered to this monster. Dr. Evans didn’t offer to help David up.

Instead, he turned his back on him and finally walked over to my bed.

His stern expression softened as he gently placed a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve already called the police,” Dr. Evans whispered quietly so only I could hear. “They are waiting right outside the door. He’s never going to touch you again. You’re safe now.” Within seconds, two uniformed officers stepped into the room.

David didn’t even fight them. He was so consumed by the devastating irony of what he had done that he simply held out his wrists, sobbing uncontrollably as the handcuffs clicked into place. They pulled him off the floor and escorted him out of the room.

He didn’t look back at me once. It has been three years since that morning in the emergency room. David is currently serving a lengthy sentence in state prison for aggravated assault and fetal homicide. My mother-in-law was forced to move out of the house, taking her rosary beads and her silent complicity with her.

Today, the mornings in my house are incredibly loud, but it’s a beautiful kind of noise. It’s the sound of my two daughters running down the hallway, laughing and fighting over who gets to pick the television show while I pour my coffee in peace.

We are healing, day by day. I still have scars from my marriage, both visible and invisible, but I no longer wake up bracing for the wrath of a man who couldn’t appreciate the beautiful family he had.

He destroyed his own legacy, and in doing so, he finally set us free.