Chapter 6: What Renata Had Never Said Out Loud
Gerald drove Renata home the following afternoon.
I had cleaned the house while she was gone — not because it needed to be cleaned, but because I needed something to do with my hands.
She walked in slowly, still pale, still moving carefully.
She stopped in the doorway of the living room and looked at the bassinet, the sofa, the dining table — the geography of what had happened two days ago.
"She's gone?" she said.
"Yes."
She nodded once.
Then she sat down on the sofa, very carefully, and held out her arms for Milo.
I brought him over.
He went to her immediately, grabbing at her shirt, making the small urgent sounds that meant he was hungry and also simply that he had missed her.
She held him close and pressed her face into the top of his head.
Gerald set the coffees he'd brought on the table and quietly took a seat across from her.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Better than yesterday." She looked up.
"Gerald, thank you.
For being at the hospital."
"I should have been around more," he said simply.
"I'm sorry I wasn't."
She shook her head.
"You didn't know."
"No.
But I should have checked." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"Renata.
I want to ask you something, and I want you to know you don't have to protect anyone's feelings when you answer."
She looked at him carefully.
"How long has she been doing this?"
Renata was quiet for a moment.
Milo had settled against her, nursing, his small hand pressed flat against her collarbone.
"Since before the wedding," she said finally.
Gerald closed his eyes briefly.
"It started small," she said.
"Little comments.
About my family, my job, the way I dressed.
I thought it was just — adjustment.
Getting to know each other.
I thought if I was patient enough, if I was good enough, she'd come around." She paused.
"After Milo was born, it got worse.
She'd call when Marcus was at work.
Tell me I was doing things wrong.
The feeding schedule, the sleep routine, the way I held him." Her voice stayed steady, but her hand tightened slightly around Milo.
"She told me once that Marcus had almost married someone else before me.
Someone from a good family.
She said she still thought about what that might have looked like."
"She said that to you," I said.
Renata looked at me.
"You didn't know."
"No.
I didn't."
"I didn't want to make you choose." Her voice cracked slightly on the last word — the first crack, the first sign of how much she had been holding.
"She's your mother, Marcus.
I kept thinking I could handle it.
I kept thinking it would get better."
"It wasn't going to get better," Gerald said quietly.
"That's not how she works.
I should have warned you both years ago, and I didn't, and I'm sorry."
Renata looked at him.
"Why didn't you?"
"Because I spent thirty years telling myself the same thing you just told me.
That it would get better.
That if I was patient enough, careful enough, it would change." He shook his head.
"It doesn't change.
It just finds new people to aim at."
The room was quiet except for Milo's small sounds.
Then Renata said, "She told me, in one of those messages — the one Marcus read — that maybe he should know I couldn't manage a household." She looked at me.
"I was so ashamed.
I thought, what if she's right?
What if I'm failing at this and I just can't see it?"
"You're not failing," I said.
"I know that now.
But at two in the morning when Milo won't sleep and I'm running a fever and she's sent me three messages in one day, it's very hard to hold onto."
I moved to the sofa and sat beside her.
She leaned into me slightly, just her shoulder against mine, and I felt the weight of everything she had been carrying alone.
"I'm not going to let her near you again," I said.
"Not like this.
Not without boundaries that she actually has to follow."
"What does that look like?"
"I don't know exactly yet.
But I'm going to figure it out.
And whatever I decide, I'm deciding it with you.
Not around you."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then: "She's going to tell people her version of this."
"Probably."
"Your aunts.
Your cousins.
She'll say I turned you against her."
"Let her," Gerald said.
"The people who know her will understand.
The people who believe her — " he paused — "weren't really on your side to begin with."
Renata looked at him for a long moment.
Then something in her face shifted — not a smile exactly, but a release.
The particular release of someone who has been bracing for a blow that finally isn't coming.
"Thank you," she said.
"Both of you."
Gerald picked up his coffee.
"Don't thank me yet.
She's going to call."
As if on cue, my phone buzzed on the table.
Colette.
I looked at it.
Renata looked at it.
Gerald looked at his coffee.
I declined the call and turned the phone face-down.
"She'll call again," Renata said.
May you like
"I know." I put my arm around her.
"But not today."
