Chapter 4
The car was already hot inside. I'd left the windows up when we got there that morning, and now the heat had settled over the seats. Daniel started it without looking at me and cranked the air, and pink frosting was still drying on my cheek. It pulled when I breathed.
He pulled out of the garden pavilion lot slowly, like we were leaving a church service. He didn't look in the rearview toward the tables. I could see his hands tight on the wheel, his knuckles white against his navy suit pants. For two minutes neither of us spoke. The only sound was the air conditioner and the turn signal clicking when he stopped at the county road.
We were at the light when he tried again. He kept his eyes straight ahead.
"Emma, maybe we should just go home," he said.
Same words. Same even tone he'd used standing behind me while his mother stared at me. Like if he said it calm and enough times, the rest would just dissolve.
I didn't answer at first. I watched a man push a cart across the grocery parking lot across the street. My hand rested on the seatbelt over my belly. The frosting smelled sweet and chemical that close.
"You already said that," I said. My voice was quiet. "Back there."
He exhaled through his nose. "I know. I just thought—"
"Don't."
He glanced over, then back at the light. The green hit and he drove. His jaw was working.
"Why didn't you say anything?" I asked him. Not loud. I kept my eyes on his profile. "When she pushed that cake into my face. When she told me to leave my own baby shower. Why did you just stand there?"
His shoulders came up. He swallowed.
"I didn't know what to do," he said. "She was— it happened so fast. I didn't want to make it worse."
"Worse than what? Worse than everyone watching you watch her do it?"
We stopped at another light. A school bus was unloading kids on the side road. He finally looked at me. I saw the frosting reflected in his glasses, smeared across my left cheek and under my eye. He didn't reach for a napkin. He didn't reach for me.
"She's my mom," he said. It came out like he'd rehearsed it his whole life. "She's always been like that. She decides things. About the house, about holidays, about family. If I argued, it just— it never helped. I learned to just let it pass."
"Let it pass," I repeated.
"Yeah. She gets fixed on something and if you push back she—" He stopped and gripped the wheel again. "Growing up, if I talked back, she'd make it ten times bigger. So I just learned to keep quiet and we'd go home and it would be over."
I felt my daughter move, a low roll under my ribs. I pressed my hand there without thinking.
"Daniel, I'm not your mom's house. I'm not a holiday dinner. I'm your wife. I'm pregnant with your daughter."
"I know that."
"Then why are you talking about her like she's weather? Like we just wait out a storm?"
He didn't have an answer. He turned into our apartment complex and pulled into our spot near the stairwell. He put the car in park and let it idle. The air was finally cold. Through the windshield I could see our front door, the mat I'd bought, the potted fern I'd kept alive for two years. Everything looked normal, which made the frosting on my face feel more obscene.
He turned off the engine. He reached for his door handle and then stopped.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I should have—"
"Don't give me a half sentence," I said. I was still buckled. I hadn't moved. "What you did back at the pavilion was not neutral. Standing behind me and saying nothing while she humiliated me in front of everyone. Saying we should just go home like I was the problem for not leaving fast enough. That was a choice."
He stared down at his hands. His tie was crooked now.
"I know," he said, barely audible.
"No, listen to me," I said. "If you think silence keeps the peace, it doesn't. It just tells her she can do it again. And it tells me I'm alone with our baby. I am not going to live like that. I am not going to give birth and bring our daughter home to a house where your mother gets to decide if we belong."
He looked up, startled.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying where I live and where I have this baby depends on what you do next," I said. My voice didn't rise. It shook once and I breathed through it. "Not what you say in the car. What you do when she talks to you. When she talks about us. If you keep letting it pass, Daniel, you will be letting us go."
He reached for me then, his hand hovering over my arm, not landing.
"Emma—"
I unbuckled my seatbelt. The click was loud.
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"I'm going inside to wash my face," I said. "You're going to sit here until you can tell me, out loud, that you failed me back there. Not that it was complicated. Not that she was raised that way. That you failed me. And then we're going to figure out if you know how to stand next to me instead of behind me."
I opened my door. The heat hit my legs. I didn't look back to see if he followed. I heard his door stay closed as I walked toward the stairs alone, my hand on my belly, frosting still on my skin.
