The ballroom fell completely silent. Brett stared at me, then at the stroller, as though neither of us could possibly be real. Eleanor dropped her wineglass, and Tessa’s face turned paper white.

I reached into my purse and handed a flash drive to the event organizer. “Please play this,” I said. He looked confused but inserted it into the projector computer anyway.

A crackling audio file filled the room. Then Brett’s voice echoed through the speakers. “I need to get my mother out first… If Natalie wants to stand here making a scene, let her.” Then came my desperate plea: “I’m six months pregnant.”

The final sentence made several people gasp. “You always make everything worse than it is.” Then the sound of the SUV driving away-