Beatrice marched to the bedside, her heels clicking like gunshots on the tile floor. She didn’t even glance at the bassinet. She didn’t look at the miracle of life sleeping inches from her.

She looked at my stomach. At the bandages. At the failure.

“You couldn’t even give me a grandson!” she shrieked, her voice cracking with hysteria. “One job! You had one job!”

I tried to sit up, but the pain pinned me down. “Beatrice, please… she’s healthy. She’s beautiful.”

“She is worthless!” Beatrice screamed.

Then, the unthinkable happened.

She swung her heavy handbag. It was filled with keys, makeup, metal buckles—a dense weight of luxury. She brought it down directly onto my fresh incision.

The pain was blinding. It was a white-hot knife twisting in my gut, tearing through the anesthesia, through the stitches, through my soul.