Chương 1
""At five in the morning, Victor ripped the comforter off my six-month-pregnant body and told me his parents were hungry.
For three seconds I lay there with one hand beneath my belly, trying to decide whether the pain in my lower back was ordinary pregnancy pain or something I should be afraid of.
“Get up, Claire.”
His voice had that flat edge I had learned was worse than shouting.
I pushed myself onto one elbow.
“I was awake half the night.”
“So?”
“My back is hurting.”
Victor leaned over the mattress, close enough that I smelled the mint mouthwash he used every morning before anyone else in the house was awake.
“My mother has been waiting twenty minutes.”
It was absurd enough that I almost laughed.
His parents had arrived from Arizona nine days earlier, supposedly for a long weekend before the baby came.
Nine days later, their suitcases were still open in the guest room, Helena’s vitamins covered half the bathroom counter, and Raúl had begun referring to our downstairs television as his television.
“I can make breakfast later,” I said.
Victor’s jaw shifted.
“Now.”
I looked toward the digital clock.
5:04.
“Your mother can make toast.”
The slap came so quickly that my first sensation was not pain but surprise.
My cheek hit the pillow.
For a moment neither of us moved.
Victor had shoved me before.
He had gripped my wrists hard enough to leave fingerprints.
He had punched a hole through the pantry door beside my head and later spent an hour explaining that he had deliberately missed me, as if restraint deserved gratitude.
But he had never struck my face.
Not until that morning.
He stared at his own hand.
Something like fear passed through his expression, and for one foolish second I believed he might apologize.
Then he pointed toward the bedroom door.
“Kitchen.”
I got up.
My left foot had gone numb from sleeping badly, and I steadied myself against the dresser until the tingling passed.
Victor stood there watching as if my body were performing an inconvenience specifically designed to embarrass him.
I pulled on my robe.
He said, “Don’t start crying.”
I had not realized I was.
Downstairs, every light in the kitchen was on.
Helena sat at the table in a lavender tracksuit, scrolling through her phone while Raúl drank coffee from the mug my mother had given me when I graduated from nursing school.
Nora, Victor’s younger sister, was perched on the counter with one bare foot swinging above the floor.
She raised her phone when I entered.
I stopped.
“Are you recording me?”
Nora smiled.
“You look wrecked.”
“Turn it off.”
“Oh, relax.”
Helena looked up.
“There she is.”
Raúl tapped the table twice.
“Eggs would be good.”
It was the tapping that almost broke me.
Not the command itself.
Not Helena’s little smile.
The tapping.
Like I was a waitress who had ignored his table.
Victor came in behind me and opened the refrigerator.
“Eggs, bacon, pancakes.”
“There’s cereal,” I said.
Nobody answered.
My hands were shaking when I took the carton of eggs from him.
I set a skillet on the stove and reached for the cooking spray.
Helena sighed loudly.
“What?”
I asked.
“Nothing.”
“You sighed.”
“I’m allowed to breathe in my son’s house.”
It was my house too.
My name was on the deed because my grandmother’s inheritance had supplied most of the down payment.
I nearly said it.
Instead I sprayed the pan.
I had become skilled at swallowing sentences.
That was one of the things nobody tells you about living with someone whose anger controls the temperature of a room.
You stop asking whether you are right.
You start asking what being right will cost.
Nora was still recording.
“Please stop.”
“I’m not even filming you.”
Her lens was pointed directly at me.
“Nora.”
“God, Claire, you’re so paranoid.”
Victor took the phone gently from his sister, and relief moved through me before I understood my mistake.
He examined the screen, laughed at whatever she had captured, and handed it back.
Helena laughed too.
That was when I saw the shape of the morning clearly.
This was entertainment.
I cracked the first egg.
A wave of dizziness rolled through me so hard that the countertop seemed to tilt.
I grabbed its edge.
Victor noticed.
“Don’t.”
“I’m dizzy.”
“Don’t start.”
“I need to sit.”
Helena muttered, “Every day, something.”
I tried to reach the chair beside the pantry.
My knees folded before I got there.
The side of my hip struck the cabinet, then the tile came up cold against my palm.
Somewhere above me Nora made a small startled sound.
It was the only humane sound anyone made.
“Claire?”
She lowered her phone.
Victor looked embarrassed rather than concerned.
“Get up.”
I closed my eyes.
The room was pulsing.
“I can’t yet.”
Raúl pushed his chair backward.
“She does this because you allow it.”
I heard Victor say, “I know.”
Then the scrape of wood against tile.
I opened my eyes.
Victor had picked up the smooth wooden exercise dowel Raúl used for shoulder stretches.
He held it halfway down like a club.
My brain rejected the sight because accepting it required accepting too much.
“Victor.”
“Get up.”
“Put that down.”
“You heard me.”
I tried to push myself onto my knees.
Pain streaked through my lower back.
I stopped.
Helena gave a short laugh.
It was not a joyful sound.
It was the laugh of someone who had been waiting to be proved correct.
“She has no respect for you.”
Victor’s face changed.
That sentence did something to him.
Later, lying under fluorescent hospital lights, I would return to that exact instant and understand that Helena had not ordered him to hit me.
She had done something more practiced.
She had touched the place inside him where humiliation lived.
He lifted the dowel.
“Victor, don’t.”
The first blow struck the outside of my thigh.
May you like
Pain exploded through my leg.
I screamed and rolled onto my side, pulling both arms around my stomach.
