A Christian Couple Gave Me a Room. Then They Asked Me to Give Them My Baby.
A few months after my daughter was born, it became obvious that I had to get away from her father. Although he’d left me early in the pregnancy, I was still under his thrall. I had so many fears about my ability to be a single mom and I held very little agency on my own.
Most of my time was spent cooped up in our old apartment as he built a life with a new girlfriend in Georgia. He was my closest connection to the outside world, but he was also very selfish and cruel.
The lease on the apartment was soon to expire. Before I gave birth, my ex sublet our apartment out to his very first mistress, an older woman he’d met more than 10 years before. She and her boyfriend were not especially kind. They behaved as if me and my daughter were a terrible inconvenience although I spent most of our time in the master bedroom. While they were away at work, I moved out into the common areas — the living room or the kitchen. The arrangement was terribly depressing. They felt entitled to use all of my belongings but complained that my daughter cried too much.
She had colic.
Meanwhile, her father didn’t understand why it bothered me so much to be stuck at home with our infant. Why I was so miserable when I couldn’t get out of the house. On a few occasions, I…
