I pressed a hand to my chest and forced myself to breathe evenly as my memories were extracted.By then, the large screen had already begun playing Hazel's memories."Now playing selected memory segments from the defendant, Hazel Cooper," the court staff said.Onscreen, a younger Hazel leaned shyly against me, beautiful and gentle, her arms wrapped around my waist. "Dear, you're going on a business trip tomorrow. The baby and I will miss you. Come back quickly."My response was flat, almost distracted. "Okay. Go to bed early. If you stay up too late, the baby will start acting up in your belly and hurting you again."After that, it was shown that I was almost never home.Hazel was left to hold the household together—cleaning, cooking, doing laundry—her belly heavy with pregnancy.She went to every prenatal checkup alone and cared for my frail, ailing mother by herself.All that exhaustion never earned her a single kind word from me. Instead, she learned to read my moods, to tre
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