My mother-in-law announced our unborn son’s name to forty guests after we had told her twice we wouldn’t use it. When I handed back her embroidered blanket, she said my mother would be ashamed of me. My mother had been dead six years—and suddenly everyone expected me to apologize for saying no...

The walk toward the double oak doors felt like walking through a gauntlet of executioners.

Levi had his arm wrapped tightly around my waist, practically carrying half my weight as the adrenaline crash hit my knees. Camille walked on my other side, her head held high, glaring down anyone who dared to look in our direction.

The forty guests did not look at Marlene with disgust.

They looked at *us*.

"Disgraceful," I heard Aunt Clara whisper loudly as we passed her table. "To treat a grieving mother that way... over a name."

"After all Marlene went through when Benjamin died," another church woman muttered, shaking her head with disdain. "That Joanna has always had a chip on her shoulder."

"She didn't even say thank you for the food."

"Cold as ice. An absolute shame."

Not a single person in that room stood up for us. To them, Marlene was the grand dame who paid the country club dues, hosted the charity galas, and wrote the checks for the church roof. I was merely the outsider who had stolen her only son and dared to reject her grand gesture.

We burst through the brass doors into the cool afternoon air of the parking lot.

The moment the heavy club doors slammed shut behind us, the dam broke. My chest hitched, and a hot, suffocating sob ripped out of my throat.

"Jo, hey, hey, look at me," Levi pleaded, spinning me gently around by the shoulders and pulling me against his chest. "Don't listen to her. Don't you dare listen to a word that monster said."

"She brought my mom into it, Levi," I wept, gripping his gray lapels until my knuckles turned white. "She stood there in front of forty people and used my dead mother to hit me."

"I know. I know," Levi murmured, his own voice cracking with unshed tears and rage. "And she will never, ever lay eyes on our son. I promise you that, Joanna. On my life."

Camille unlocked her car and ours with angry clicks of the key fobs. "Let’s go home. Right now. I’m following you guys in my car. We are locking the doors, turning off the phones, and ordering three pizzas."

As Levi helped me into the passenger seat of our sedan, my phone buzzed in my purse.

Then it buzzed again.

And again.