My husband, Alejandro Mendoza, smirked from the front table in a navy suit I had once ironed before every board meeting. Beside him sat his mother, Doña Victoria, dripping in pearls, and his new fiancée, Vanessa, who wore my wedding bracelet like a trophy.
Six days earlier, I had given birth alone.
Alejandro had refused to come to the hospital unless I signed a custody agreement granting him “temporary care” of our son until I became emotionally stable. When I refused, he sent Counselor Ricardo to my recovery room with a threat wrapped in legal language.
“Judges don’t like unstable women, Elena,” Counselor Ricardo had said, dropping papers beside my IV. “Especially unstable women with no job, no house, and a history of panic attacks.”
My “history” was two therapy appointments after Alejandro shoved me into a pantry door and told the doctor I had slipped.
Now they had dragged me into court for an emergency hearing, accusing me of kidnapping my own child, inventing abuse, and using the baby to extort money. Alejandro wanted full custody. Doña Victoria wanted me barred from the Mendoza estate. Vanessa wanted my son raised in the nursery she had decorated while I was still pregnant.
I wore a cream cardigan because it hid the bruises on my shoulder. My son slept against my chest, warm and soft, unaware that three adults had already tried to erase his mother.
The judge looked over his glasses. “Mrs. Mendoza, do you have counsel?”
