Chương 3
“Knife.”
“Yes. A knife. That was dangerous. Mama should’ve moved it away.”
Mia watched her.
Rachel brushed curls from her damp forehead.
“You are not bad.”
“Cake bad?”
“The cake had a very difficult evening.”
Mia blinked.
Then, unexpectedly, she giggled.
A tiny wet laugh.
Rachel laughed too, and the sound came out wrong, half laugh and half sob.
Mia touched Rachel’s cheek.
“Mama sad.”
“A little.”
“Daddy?”
Rachel could not answer immediately.
She stood and began running warm water into the tub.
“Daddy’s downstairs.”
“Daddy mad?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer felt more honest than anything else she had said all night.
She washed frosting from Mia’s hands.
Pink dissolved into the water.
The dress was probably ruined. Rachel had bought it online after comparing six nearly identical peach dresses and then felt stupid for caring which one photographed better.
She peeled it carefully over Mia’s head.
Underneath, Mia wore a diaper and one white sock.
The other shoe had disappeared somewhere between the dining room and the suite.
Rachel found herself staring at the single sock.
She sat on the bathroom floor.
Mia climbed into her lap naked except for the diaper and sock.
Rachel held her.
The slap replayed in her mind.
Not like a movie.
Like a physical memory.
The resistance of Ethan’s cheek.
The sting in her palm.
The look on his face.
She covered her mouth.
“Mama?”
“I’m okay.”
It was exactly what adults said when they were not.
A knock came at the suite door.
Rachel froze.
Three polite taps.
“Ms. Mercer? Room service.”
She exhaled.
The milk arrived with a small silver pitcher and two glasses because the hotel assumed an adult had ordered it.
Housekeeping sent a stain-removal kit in a cloth bag embroidered with the resort logo.
Rachel nearly laughed again.
Of course a resort charging fourteen hundred dollars a night had emergency frosting infrastructure.
Mia drank milk from the hotel water glass because Rachel had left her sippy cup in the diaper bag downstairs.
After the bath, Rachel dressed her in pajamas and tucked her into the portable crib the hotel had provided.
Mia sat up.
“Daddy story.”
Rachel’s chest tightened.
Ethan read bedtime stories differently from Rachel.
Rachel did voices.
Ethan refused to do voices because he claimed every animal came out sounding like a middle-aged accountant.
Mia loved his reading anyway.
He always paused before turning the page and asked, “What do you think happens next?”
It had become their thing.
Rachel sat beside the crib.
“Daddy can read tomorrow.”
“Tonight.”
“Not tonight.”
Mia frowned.
Rachel picked up the board book about a bear who misplaced his hat.
She read it badly.
No voices.
When Mia finally fell asleep, Rachel remained on the carpet.
Rain streaked the windows.
Her phone showed twenty-three unread messages.
Most were from Claire.
Two from Ethan.
One from Vivian.
Rachel opened none of them.
She called her sister instead.
Nora answered on the second ring.
“Hey. How’s the birthday?”
Rachel began crying before she could speak.
Nora’s voice changed.
“What happened?”
“I hit Ethan.”
Silence.
Not theatrical silence.
The kind in which someone on the other end is rapidly rearranging their understanding of you.
“You what?”
“I slapped him.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“Is Mia safe?”
“Yes.”
“Is Ethan?”
“Yes.”
Another silence.
“Okay. Tell me from the beginning.”
Rachel sat with her back against the bed.
She told it badly.
She started with the cake, jumped backward to Vivian criticizing Mia at lunch, then forward to Ethan demanding an apology, then backward six months to Christmas.
Nora interrupted twice to ask what actually happened tonight.
Rachel got irritated.
Then embarrassed.
Then angry again.
Finally Nora said, “Rach.”
“What?”
“You know I love you.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
“Please don’t start with that.”
“I’m not starting anything. I’m trying to say two things can be true.”
Rachel waited.
“Vivian sounds awful,” Nora said. “And you cannot hit Ethan.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Because you keep explaining Vivian.”
“I’m explaining why I was angry.”
“That’s different from why you hit him.”
Rachel said nothing.
Nora sighed.
“I’m not judging you.”
“You are.”
“I am a little.”
Despite herself, Rachel gave a miserable laugh.
“Thanks.”
“I would be worried about you if I wasn’t.”
Rachel picked at a loose thread in the carpet.
“I don’t even know what happened.”
“Yes, you do.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you got furious and you slapped your husband.”
Rachel winced.
Nora continued more gently.
“That doesn’t make you some monster. But don’t make it mystical. You did it.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Rachel stared at the dark television.
That answer helped more than advice would have.
Nora asked where Ethan was.
Rachel told her.
“Do you want me to come?”
“You’re four hours away.”
“I have a car.”
“Nora.”
“I’m serious.”
“No. Mia’s asleep. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
“I’m not in danger.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Rachel pressed her thumb into her palm where it still tingled.
“I need to talk to Ethan.”
“Tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe not tonight.”
Rachel almost laughed.
“Apparently no one knows anything tonight.”
“That sounds about right.”
After they hung up, Rachel finally opened Ethan’s messages.
The first had been sent twenty minutes earlier.
I’m staying in Claire and Mark’s room tonight.
The second:
I’m not bringing Mom into this conversation. I need you to know that what happened was not okay.
Rachel stared at the words.
Her first impulse was defensive.
Not bringing Mom into this conversation.
As if his mother could be neatly removed from the evening.
As if the argument had begun with Rachel’s hand.
She typed:
And what she did to Mia was?
She deleted it.
Typed:
I already said I know.
Deleted that too.
Then:
You’re right. It wasn’t okay. I’m sorry I hit you. I don’t expect you to accept that tonight. Mia is asleep. She asked for you.
May you like
She sent it.
Three dots appeared.
