Two days after my husband died, his mother kicked me out with our newborn son. No sympathy. No pause. Just three cruel words: “You and your child mean nothing to me.”

I left our apartment with only a suitcase, a diaper bag, and Caleb’s hoodie clutched to my chest like a lifeline. I didn’t know where I would sleep that night, but I knew one thing: we had nowhere left to turn.

The hallway felt colder than the winter air outside. I could hear my own heartbeat, deafening, in my ears. My name is Mia. I’m 24 years old, and I was standing in the corridor of the apartment I had shared with my husband, Caleb, holding our three-week-old son, Noah.

I was still wearing the clothes from the funeral, my hair was tangled, my cheeks were swollen from crying, and I could barely keep my eyes open. And yet, I had to stay upright, because Noah depended on me.

Deborah, my mother-in-law, looked at me with a gaze so sharp and cold it could cut steel. No warmth. No hesitation. No recognition that I had been Caleb’s partner, that I had carried and delivered his child. Or that this tiny boy in my arms—our son—was the grandson she was supposed to love.