He grabbed his fishing gear from the back seat and told me the hospital was only twelve minutes away—I could handle it.

Then he got into his father’s Chevy Silverado, and I watched the red taillights disappear down Mulberry Street while another contraction ripped through my body.

That was the morning I finally understood who I had married.
My name is Destiny Dickerson. I was twenty-nine years old, nine months pregnant, and about to give birth to my first child completely alone. I need to back up a little, because you need to understand how I ended up in that Ford Explorer, gripping the dashboard, watching my husband choose a fishing trip over the birth of his daughter.

I met Brent Holloway four years ago at a friend’s backyard barbecue in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. He was charming, attentive, and had this way of making me feel like the only person in the room. We got married after a year of dating. I kept my last name because my father had passed away two years before the wedding, and I wanted to carry a piece of him with me. Brent said he understood. Looking back, I think that was the first red flag I ignored—he understood a lot of things he never actually accepted.