Chapter 10 - Let Him Say It
The garden looked smaller without the balloons. I noticed it right away when we walked back out to LOCATION_X. The arch was gone, the string still taped to the fence fluttering, but the folding table was still there where we had left it with the cake box collapsed on its side and a few plastic forks stuck to the paper tablecloth.
I was still in the same light pink dress, though I'd washed it. You could still see a faint pink shadow at the neckline where the frosting had soaked in. My hair was pulled back, damp at the ends. I kept my hand low on my belly without thinking about it.
My mother-in-law was already standing by the table in her pink lace dress, pearls at her throat, hands clasped like she was hosting again. She didn't look at me when I came closer. She looked at him.
My husband stood a step behind me in his navy blazer, white shirt open at the collar. Same way he'd stood during the shower, except now there was nowhere for him to look except at us. The witness from the neighborhood association, Diane, stood off to the side near the fence with her clipboard against her chest, not saying anything. I'd asked her to be there.
For a few seconds nobody spoke. The sprinklers ticked in the next yard.
My mother-in-law finally said, "So this is what you needed an audience for."
I didn't answer her. I turned my head just enough to look at my husband. That was the point of being back here.
"You need to say it," I said quietly. "Not to me. To her. Out loud."
He swallowed. I could see his throat move. His eyes flicked to his mother, then back to me, then down to my dress where the stain still showed.
Diane shifted her weight but stayed quiet.
My mother-in-law let out a short breath. "Say what? That I embarrassed you? We already handled the house paperwork. You proved your point."
My husband's hands were in his pockets. He took them out. He didn't do anything with them.
"Mom," he said, and his voice was thin. He cleared it. "You were wrong to do that. To push cake on her face like that. To humiliate her at her own shower."
My mother-in-law's chin lifted. "I tapped it. She overreacted."
"No," he said. It came out louder than he expected, and he paused. "No, you smeared it across her face and hair. In front of everyone. And you said—" He glanced at me. "You said my son deserved a boy. Like she had failed because it's a girl."
I felt my eyes sting, but I didn't move. I needed him to keep going without me filling the silence for him.
He turned fully toward his mother then. "She belongs here. This is her house. It's our house. And our daughter belongs here. You don't get to act like she doesn't because she's not a boy."
The air got very still. Even the breeze through the foliage seemed to stop.
My mother-in-law stared at him for a long beat. Her mouth tightened. When she spoke, her voice was calm and precise, the way she used it when she was correcting someone.
"So you're choosing her side now?" she said. "Over your own mother? Over your family name? I raised you. I was here before she was. You are my son first."
She took a step closer to him. "You want to tell me that a girl you haven't even met matters more than your mother standing right in front of you?"
I felt my hand press harder against my belly. I didn't answer for him. I wouldn't.
He looked down at the grass, then up. His jaw was tight. I could see the color high on his neck. He'd always hated being put on the spot like that, and she knew it.
"I am your son," he said after a second. His voice shook a little. "But I'm her husband. And I'm going to be that baby's dad. You asked me to pick. So I'm picking them. They come first. That doesn't mean I don't love you, but you were wrong and you don't get to do that again."
My mother-in-law's eyes cut to me, quick and hard, then back to him. She didn't like that he hadn't crumbled.
"So that's it? You'd let her keep me from my grandchild because I wanted a grandson?" she said.
"No one is keeping anyone from anyone," he said. He was breathing faster now, but he didn't back up. "But if you want to be around our daughter, you have to treat my wife with respect. And you have to want our daughter. Not the boy you wanted."
Diane made a small sound, almost a cough, but she didn't intervene. She was watching his mother carefully.
My mother-in-law stood there with her hands still clasped, pearls bright against her pink lace. She didn't apologize. She didn't reach for him. She just looked at him like she was recalculating.
"I see," she said.
May you like
He didn't fill the quiet this time either. He let it hang. His shoulders were up near his ears, his hands opening and closing at his sides, but he stayed where he was, between me and his mother, facing her.
I realized I had been holding my breath. I let it out slowly. The frosting was gone, the balloons were gone, but the way he stood now was different from how he'd stood while I wiped cake from my eye. He wasn't watching from the background anymore.
