In Bed With Another Woman After Our Daughter's Funeral

We were all adults. The moment my mother-in-law heard the sounds on the phone—his husky voice, the faint laughter of another woman—she understood everything.

Her whole body trembled with fury. She could no longer hold it in.

“Ethan, you heartless beast!” she screamed, voice cracking. “You just buried your daughter, and now you’re in bed with another woman? What kind of son are you?”

Her voice rose again, sharper, more broken. “You killed your own child and have the nerve to carry on like nothing happened. If you don’t come home right now, I swear I’ll pretend you were never born!”

The line went dead.

She lowered the phone slowly, hands shaking, breath uneven. All the strength drained from her like air from a punctured balloon. She slumped into the nearest chair and buried her face in her hands. When she finally looked at me, tears of guilt clung to her lashes.

“Hannah… I’m sorry. This is all my fault,” she whispered, voice hoarse. “I hurt you… and I let him hurt Lily too.”

I didn’t know how to respond. My chest felt hollow.

I had come into the Sinclair family when I was only ten. My parents had died on duty, and the Sinclair family took me in. My mother-in-law and father-in-law treated me as their own daughter. And Ethan… he was kind back then.

He was thirteen. I was ten. He didn’t resent me, didn’t call me an outsider. Instead, he welcomed me like a younger sister.

When other kids called me by the names—"orphan," "charity case," "stray girl"—he defended me fiercely.

I still remember him grabbing one of the boys by the collar, yelling, “Who said Hannah Carter has no family? We’re her family! If anyone dares bully her again, they’ll answer to me!”

From that day on, he stuck with me like a shadow. Quiet and watchful, like a silent protector.

Back then, I thought of him as my shield, my big brother, my knight.

But everything changed on my twentieth birthday.

That night, he got drunk and stumbled into my room. I tried to stop him, but I was no match. I gave in, confused, thinking maybe… maybe he cared for me more than I’d realized.

But the next morning shattered that illusion.

He looked at me with disgust, eyes blazing like a cornered beast.

“Hannah,” he spat, gripping my wrist, “how could you be so shameless? Did you seduce me on purpose?!”

I tried to explain—he hadn’t even known what he was doing—but he wouldn’t hear it. He was convinced I had trapped him.

Then, a few weeks later, I found out I was pregnant.

I had no money. I went to him quietly, hoping to get help with an abortion. But his parents overheard us talking.

They were furious. They forbade me from ending the pregnancy. Forced him to take responsibility. Forced him to marry me.

His girlfriend, Jessica Monroe, left the country in a rage.

And he never forgave me for that.

He married me, yes. But never once did he treat me like a wife.

He gave me cold shoulders and cutting words. The warm, protective boy I once knew was gone.

And he despised our daughter—Lily.

He refused to let her call him “dad.”

In four years, he never once held her in his arms.

When Jessica returned, he ran back to her like a lost dog, wooed her back from abroad like nothing had happened.

In public, she stood by his side at events, dinners, parties—always as “Mrs. Sinclair.”

While I… I became a ghost. And my daughter, the child he refused to acknowledge, was treated like a stain he wanted erased.

There were times I wanted to leave. To give up. To let him go, and set myself free.

But Lily… she loved him. Yearned for him.

She tried so hard to win his affection, watched his moods closely, and smiled at him even when he ignored her.

I was heartbroken. I begged my mother-in-law for a divorce.

But she shook her head.

“A child needs a whole family,” she said. “If you divorce, think of how much damage that will do to Lily.”

“And Ethan… he does care for you. He just doesn’t realize it yet. When he figures it out, he’ll come around. For my sake… please give him one more chance.”

For Lily, I stayed.

For her, I endured.