Get out.”

I have already told you I won’t narrate what came next in detail, and I’m going to keep that promise.

He didn’t take being refused any better than he ever had.

He put his hand on my arm; I pulled away and told him not to touch me; and instead he took hold of my hair, and he dragged me out of my own kitchen and put me out the front door onto the porch, and somewhere in it my water broke.

Behind us, the whole time, Courtney was laughing — not a loud laugh, just an easy, careless one, as though a pregnant woman being hauled through her own house by her hair were a mildly amusing thing to watch on a Tuesday.