Chương 1
I was six months pregnant when, at five in the morning, my husband kicked open our bedroom door and called me a useless cow.
The door handle struck the wall hard enough to leave a crescent-shaped dent in the paint. I woke with both hands over my stomach, not because I had made a decision but because my body had learned before my mind did. Protect the baby. Protect the softest part. Keep still until you understand the danger.
Trent crossed the room in three steps and tore the blanket off me.
“Get up.”
The cold found my legs. I was wearing an old maternity shirt and underwear, and for one foolish second I was embarrassed about that. Not afraid. Embarrassed. There are humiliations so ordinary they survive even inside terror.
“What happened?” My mouth tasted sour. “Is somebody sick?”
“My parents are hungry.”
I looked at the clock. The green numbers read 5:02.
Helen and Richard had been staying with us for eleven days, though the original plan had been four. Nicole had arrived the evening before because they were all supposed to leave for the airport early. Helen had announced that she wanted “a proper breakfast before travel,” but I had assumed she meant coffee and toast. I had assumed many things during my marriage because the alternatives required decisions I was not ready to make.
“I can put something out,” I said. “Give me a minute.”
“You’ve had all night.”
“I was asleep.”
His face changed at that. Not much. The skin around his mouth tightened, and his eyes flicked toward the doorway, where someone was standing in the hall.
Helen.
She wore a cream-colored traveling outfit that did not have a wrinkle in it. Her silver hair was brushed, her lipstick already on. She had been awake long enough to become presentable before her son came upstairs to drag me from bed.
“She’s arguing,” Helen said.
“I’m not arguing.”
“You always say that while you’re doing it.”
Trent grabbed my wrist. His thumb pressed into the tender place where a bruise from three nights earlier had begun to yellow.
I tried to stand quickly because I knew what happened when he believed I was moving too slowly. My right leg cramped. The room tipped, then corrected itself, leaving the dresser at a strange angle.
“Careful,” I whispered.
He gave my arm a hard pull.
Pain ran through my lower back. I caught the bedpost with my free hand.
“The doctor said I shouldn’t—”
“The doctor says whatever you pay her to say.”
Helen smiled from the hall. “Pregnancy isn’t a disability, Mara.”
It was a phrase she had used often enough that Trent now said it with her exact rhythm. They shared language the way other families shared recipes.
The baby moved low in my abdomen, a rolling pressure that made me want to sit down again. I had begun calling her June in private, though Trent hated the name. He said it sounded poor. He preferred Sloane, which sounded to him like someone who would never have stains on her clothes or trouble getting approved for a mortgage.
“Shoes,” I said. “Let me put on shoes.”
“You’re going downstairs, not hiking.”
The hallway light made me squint. Nicole stood beside the linen closet holding her phone upright. Her hair was piled into a loose knot, and she wore Trent’s old college sweatshirt over leggings. When she saw me looking at the screen, she lowered it slightly.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
A red dot glowed near the top of her display.
“Are you recording me?”
“Oh my God.” She rolled her eyes. “Not everything is about you.”
Helen turned away first, moving toward the stairs. “We have a flight. Some of us understand schedules.”
I followed because Trent’s hand remained locked around my wrist.
Halfway down, I lost my footing.
My heel slid from the edge of a step. I caught the railing and stopped myself before my stomach struck the banister. Trent swore as though I had inconvenienced him deliberately.
“Quit jerking around.”
“I slipped.”
“You’re always slipping. Dropping things. Forgetting things. Maybe pay attention for once.”
Nicole’s phone remained pointed at my back.
The house was too bright downstairs. Every kitchen light had been turned on, and the pale counters reflected the glare until I saw spots. A cast-iron skillet sat on the stove with oil heating in it. Richard occupied his usual chair at the end of the island, reading something on his tablet. He looked up, frowned at my bare legs, and returned to the screen.
“There she is,” he said. “Sleeping Beauty.”
I reached for the counter. “What do you want me to make?”
“Eggs,” Helen said. “Bacon. Biscuits, if you have them.”
“We don’t.”
“You could make them.”
“From scratch?”
She looked at the clock over the pantry. “We leave in an hour and twenty minutes.”
I opened the refrigerator. The cold air struck my face, and the dizziness returned so fast that my fingers missed the door shelf.
The kitchen stretched away from me. The jars and cartons blurred into bands of color. Somewhere behind me, Nicole laughed quietly.
I tried to say Trent’s name. What came out was a breath.
Then my knees hit the tile.
The side of my face struck the lower refrigerator door before I landed. A bright crack of pain flashed across my cheekbone. I heard the glass bottle in the door rattle. The refrigerator alarm began chiming because the door was still open.
No one moved to help me.
Richard made an impatient sound. “Here we go.”
“I’m dizzy,” I said.
My voice seemed to come from under the floor.
Trent stood over me. “Get up.”
“I need water.”
“You need an audience,” Helen said.
The baby had gone still.
That silence inside me was worse than anything in the room.
May you like
I rolled onto my side and put one hand beneath my stomach. “Please. Just give me a minute.”
Nicole’s phone was close enough now that I could see the comments rising on her screen. Most were too small to read, but I saw laughing faces. Someone had written, Is she serious?
