Chapter 3
I didn't wait for her to answer.
The silence after my last sentence stretched too long to be anything but a choice. Her mouth pressed tighter, Daniel's hand hovered in the air between us like he wasn't sure who he was supposed to reach for, and the cake sat there on the table with its pink border smeared and its message ruined.
I put both hands on the arms of the white folding chair and pushed myself up. Slowly. Deliberately. My other hand found the back of the chair for support because at seven months you don't just stand up fast. My knees popped a little. My dress clung where I'd been sitting in the heat.
Nobody moved to help me. That was the point.
Daniel stepped closer as I got to my feet. "Emma, let me —" He reached for my elbow.
I shifted my weight and let his hand close on air. I didn't slap it away. I just moved past it.
"I'm walking out," I said, quiet enough that only he and she could hear me. "I'm not being thrown out."
His mother was still standing behind the table, not behind me anymore but across from me now. The beige lace of her dress didn't move in the breeze. She watched me with that same composed, lip-pressed look. No apology. Not even a blink.
I picked up my small purse from the seat of the chair. I did not pick up a napkin. The frosting was still on my left cheek, under my eye, a cold smear of pink that I could feel tightening as it dried. I could have wiped it off. Everyone was expecting me to. I left it there.
I walked.
The pavilion floor was that white wood that sounds hollow under flat shoes. My shoes made a soft tap with each step. The table with the cake was to my right as I passed it. I didn't look at it again. I looked straight ahead at the gap between the white railing posts where the steps went down to the grass.
There were pink balloons clustered on either side of the entrance. Someone had spent an hour tying them there that morning. As I passed, one of them brushed my shoulder and bounced.
The guests parted. That's the only way I can describe it. There were maybe fifteen people — Daniel's aunts, two cousins, a few friends of his mother, one of my coworkers who'd come as a favor. They had been whispering since she said Daniel deserved a boy. Now they went completely silent and made a lane. I felt their eyes on the frosting on my face, on my belly, on my back as I went by. No one said excuse me. No one said Emma.
I heard Daniel's shoes behind me. Too close, trying to catch up without running.
"Emma, wait," he said behind me, not loud.
I kept walking. The steps down from the pavilion were three shallow ones. I took them one at a time, hand light on the railing. The grass at the bottom was soft and a little uneven. The sun was still bright, straight daylight with no clouds, the kind that makes everything look sharper than it should.
The parking lot was beyond the grass, maybe forty feet past the last row of balloons. My car was there, but Daniel had driven us both in his sedan. I headed for his car anyway because it was the closest thing that belonged to us.
I heard his mother didn't follow. I didn't have to turn to know. The pavilion stayed quiet behind me, no chairs scraping, no heels clicking. She remained at the table with her cake.
Halfway across the grass, Daniel caught up and fell into step beside me. He tried again, hand out, palm up this time, an offer instead of a grab.
"Let me help you at least," he said.
I kept my hands on my purse strap with both hands. My voice stayed even. "Don't."
He let his hand drop. He didn't argue. He just walked with me, a half-step behind, like he was afraid if he got too far ahead I'd think he was leading me and if he fell too far back I'd think he left me.
The pink balloons were behind us now. The frosting was still wet enough that a fly buzzed near my cheek and I didn't swat at it. I wanted everyone who was watching from that pavilion to see exactly what they had let happen.
May you like
We reached the edge of the grass where it met the asphalt. The heat came off the lot in a wave. Daniel fumbled for his keys. He didn't go around to the driver's side without me.
We stood there at the car, not touching, not looking at each other yet, with the pavilion and its table and its smashed It's a Girl cake still visible over my shoulder.
