Within forty-eight hours, both Walter and Lorraine were arrested at Thornfield Court and charged with assault and battery of a pregnant woman.

Corey called thirty-seven times that first night. I didn’t answer. My mother picked up the thirty-eighth.

“Do not come to this hospital, Corey,” she told him. “If you come near her, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing. It’s over.”

Priya moved fast. She filed for an emergency ex parte protective order and a petition for divorce, seeking full sole custody of my unborn child.

The initial custody hearing came ten days later. Corey arrived with a bewildered-looking attorney and tried to contest it, calling the incident an “isolated family misunderstanding.”

He badly misjudged the bench. Judge Carol Whitfield was a veteran of family court with no patience for it.