My mother-in-law loudly suggested I "stop eating for two" and "hit the gym" at my own baby shower — my mom's response made her run out of our house.

I couldn't hear what Brenda said.

I could only watch Lucas.

His back stayed turned to the party.

One hand on the fence.

The other holding the phone against his ear.

He didn't pace.

He didn't raise his voice.

He just stood there, and the stillness of him was more frightening than any argument I had ever seen.

The call lasted four minutes.

I counted.

When he came back, his face was composed in the careful way that meant he was working very hard to keep it that way.

"She denied it," he said.

"All of it?"

"She said my mom's friend is a bitter woman who invented the story because she was jealous of Brenda's marriage." He said it flatly, like he was reading from a document.

"She said you put my mom up to it.

That you've been trying to turn me against her since the beginning."

My mom made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh.

"She said that?" I asked.

"Word for word." Lucas sat down in one of the garden chairs.

He looked suddenly tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour.

"She also said that if I believed any of it, I wasn't the son she raised."

"Classic," my mom said under her breath.

"Lucas." I sat down beside him.

"Do you believe her?"

He was quiet for a moment.

"I believe she's capable of saying whatever she needs to say to make a problem disappear." He looked at me.

"I've watched her do it my whole life.

I just never thought I'd be the problem she was trying to make disappear."

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know yet." He rubbed the back of his neck.

"I need to talk to my dad."

"That's a hard conversation."

"I know." He looked at the back gate again.

"But he deserves to know.

Whatever the truth is, he deserves to know."

The party began to wind down around us.

Guests found their bags, collected their favors, hugged me and pressed their hands to my belly and said beautiful things about the baby.

I smiled and thanked them and meant it, even through everything.

The baby was still the best thing that had ever happened to us.

Brenda hadn't taken that.

When the last guest left, my mom and I carried the gift table inside while Lucas sat alone in the yard.

I brought him a plate of food he didn't touch.

"She called back," he said, when I sat down beside him again.

"When?"

"While you were inside.

Two minutes ago." He set his phone on the table between us.

"She said she's been thinking, and she wants to apologize to you.

She wants to come over tomorrow morning."

I looked at the phone.

"What did you say?"

"I said I'd ask you."

"Lucas —"

"I know.

I'm not telling you to say yes.

I'm asking you." He turned to face me fully.

"Whatever you decide, I'm with you.

I just — I need to understand what actually happened before I decide what to do about my father.

And the only person who can tell me is her."

I thought about Brenda's face when my mom leaned in.

The way the color had drained out of it.

The speed with which she had grabbed her purse and walked away without a single word to me, to Lucas, to anyone.

That wasn't the exit of an innocent woman who had been falsely accused.

That was the exit of someone who had been caught.

"Fine," I said.

"She can come.

But I want my mom here."

Lucas nodded.

"Done."

I picked up the phone and looked at it for a moment before handing it back to him.

"Lucas.

Whatever she tells us tomorrow — about Phoenix, about the trainer, about all of it — I need you to promise me something."

"Anything."

"Don't let her make this about me.

She's been trying to make me the problem since the day we got engaged.

Tomorrow, that stops."

He took my hand.

"It already stopped," he said.

"It stopped the moment she picked up that glass."

But that night, after Lucas had fallen asleep, I lay in the dark with my hand on my stomach and a feeling I couldn't name pressing at the edges of everything.