Chapter 6
The phone stayed lit on the coffee table from nine until a little after ten. I didn't pick it up. I just watched it.
Daniel had left the ringer on loud. Every time a car passed the apartment building outside, the headlights swept across the ceiling and I thought it might be her text tone. It never was. The screen would dim, go black, then light up again when I tapped it to check. No missed calls. No message that said sorry, or can we talk, or I shouldn't have done that.
That was its own answer. If she thought she'd gone too far, she would have called by now. The silence meant she thought she'd been right to want a boy more than a girl. To say it out loud. To push my face into that cake.
Daniel was asleep on the couch with his suit jacket folded over the arm. He hadn't changed his shirt. His tie was loose around his neck. He breathed heavy, like he did when he was exhausted, one hand curled over the edge of the cushion. I stood in the doorway between the living room and the bedroom and watched his chest rise and fall for a minute. He hadn't asked if my phone had rung. He hadn't offered to call her himself.
I went back to the living room and picked up my phone. My thumb hovered over Mom's contact.
It was almost ten-thirty in Ohio, which meant it was seven-thirty for her in Arizona. She picked up on the second ring.
"Emma?" she said. Her voice went quick. "Honey, is everything okay? Is the baby okay?"
"The baby's okay," I said. I tried to keep my voice even and it cracked. "I'm at home."
I sat on the edge of the rug because I didn't want to sit on the couch near Daniel. The apartment smelled faintly like sugar and dish soap from where I'd scrubbed my cheek earlier. I told her what happened, piece by piece, the way it actually happened. The pavilion. The white cake with the pink border. The way Daniel's mother picked up the plate and said my son deserved a boy and told me to leave, then pushed. The frosting on my face. Daniel behind me.
Mom didn't interrupt. I could hear her breathing on the other end.
"Did Daniel stop her?" she asked when I finished.
"No," I said. "He told me we should just go home."
There was a pause. I heard her shift the phone.
"Emma, that's not tradition. That's not a strong personality. That's abuse," she said. She said it plain, no softening. "She put her hands on you while you're pregnant. In front of people. And your husband watched."
I pressed my palm against my belly without thinking. The baby moved, a slow roll under my hand.
"I keep thinking maybe I should have laughed it off," I said. "Like if I'd just wiped it off and smiled, it wouldn't be this big."
"No," Mom said. "Don't do that. Honey, listen to me, has she said things like this before?"
She had. Once I started, it all came out in a rush. How for months she'd talked about Daniel needing a son to carry the name. How at Thanksgiving she'd rubbed my stomach and said let's hope you can give us a boy this time. How when we told her it was a girl at the doctor's, she went quiet and then said well, you can always try again for a boy. How she picked out the pavilion, the balloons, the cake flavor, and Daniel told me to just let her have this one.
"She told me last month I should be resting differently if I wanted a boy, like it was my fault," I said. "I told Daniel and he said that's just how she is when she's excited."
"That's not excitement. That's control," Mom said. "And Daniel letting her control everything is how she keeps it."
I stared at the dark window. My reflection looked tired, hair still pulled back, cheek clean but pink where I'd scrubbed.
"What do I do before they do another family dinner?" I asked. "She'll want us all there for his dad's birthday next week. I don't want to go back and pretend nothing happened."
"You don't have to decide that tonight," Mom said. "But you need someone outside the family to talk to. Not just me. Someone who knows what you can do on paper to protect yourself and that baby. Is there someone at the clinic? A counselor or social worker?"
I thought of the card the nurse had given me at my last prenatal appointment, tucked in the folder with the ultrasound pictures. County Women's Health, free counseling, legal aid referral.
"I have a number," I said.
"Call them first thing in the morning," she said. "Don't wait for her to apologize. She isn't going to. You make your own appointment and you tell Daniel about it when you're ready, not before."
May you like
After we hung up, I sat on the floor with the phone in my lap. I found the card in the kitchen drawer where I'd left it. The office hours said eight to four, Monday through Friday. I set an alarm for seven forty-five. Then I opened the notes app and typed the name of the office, the number, and under it: For tomorrow - ask about safety planning and documentation. I didn't show Daniel.
I looked over at the couch. He hadn't moved. His phone was face-down on the coffee table, silent. I turned off the living room lamp and left him there, sleeping, and went into the bedroom and shut the door quietly behind me.
