He ignored her. He got back in the car, started the engine, and looked at her with the cold, detached eyes of a stranger. “My mother is more important. She raised me. You’re just my wife.”

With that, he pressed the accelerator. The car shot forward, leaving Lena standing alone in the swirling snow.

She watched the taillights disappear into the white gloom, a profound sense of disbelief washing over her. The contractions were coming faster now, harder. She sank to her knees in the snow, clutching her belly, the cold seeping through her coat, chilling her to the bone. She was alone, miles from anywhere, abandoned and betrayed by the person she had loved and trusted most in the world.