Chapter 9: What She Said at the Door
Six weeks later, on a Tuesday morning, Brenda came back.
I was alone.
Lucas was at work.
I was thirty-four weeks pregnant and moving slowly and I answered the door in my socks and an oversized cardigan, and there she was.
No pearls this time.
No florist roses.
She was wearing a plain grey coat and her hair was down, which I had never seen before, and she looked smaller than I remembered.
Not physically.
Just — smaller.
"I know I should have called," she said.
"I was afraid you'd say not to come."
I looked at her for a moment.
Then I stepped back from the door.
She came in.
She didn't sit down until I gestured to the chair.
She didn't speak until I sat across from her.
"I've been in counseling," she said.
"Robert and I both.
And separately as well." She looked at her hands.
"I've been asked to think about why I behave the way I do.
Where it comes from." A pause.
"It's not a comfortable process."
"I imagine not."
"I was unkind to you." She said it plainly, without the theatrical regret of the first apology.
"Not just at the shower.
For years.
I picked at you and dismissed you and made you feel like you weren't measuring up.
And the truth is —" She stopped.
Pressed her lips together.
Tried again.
"The truth is that you measured up perfectly.
You always did.
Lucas has never been happier.
Anyone could see that."
I waited.
"I think I was frightened of you," she said.
"That sounds ridiculous."
"It doesn't."
"You were so — settled.
In yourself.
You didn't need my approval and I could tell, and I didn't know what to do with that." She shook her head slightly.
"I'm not excusing it.
I'm trying to explain it.
There's a difference."
"There is," I agreed.
"I behaved badly.
I embarrassed you in front of people who love you.
I said something unforgivable at a moment that should have been only happy." She looked up at me.
"I don't expect you to forgive me.
I'm not here to ask for that.
I'm here because my counselor told me I needed to say these things out loud, to your face, without asking for anything in return."
The room was quiet.
Outside, a car passed.
The refrigerator hummed.
"Can I ask you something?" I said.
"Yes."
"The comments.
The gym.
The way I dressed, the way I talked at parties, the weight comments even before I was pregnant." I kept my voice even.
"Did you ever think about how those things landed?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"No," she said.
"I told myself I was being helpful.
Honest.
That you were strong enough to take it." She paused.
"I think I knew, somewhere, that I was doing damage.
I just didn't want to look at it directly."
"Okay," I said.
She looked at me.
"Okay?"
"I'm not ready to say everything is fine.
It isn't, not yet.
But I believe you mean what you're saying today." I looked at her steadily.
"That's different from the last time you sat in this kitchen."
Something in her face shifted.
Relaxed, slightly.
"It is different," she said quietly.
"I know that."
She stood to leave.
At the door, she paused with her hand on the frame.
"The baby," she said.
"I'd like to be part of the baby's life.
If you'll allow it." She didn't look at me when she said it.
She was looking at the floor.
"I understand if the answer is not yet.
Or not at all.
I just needed to say it."
I thought about Robert's voice on the phone.
*I'm going to be a better grandfather than I was a father-in-law.* I thought about Lucas on the nursery floor, holding up a small wooden dowel with great seriousness.
I thought about the baby, who did not yet know any of this, and who deserved a grandmother who was trying.
"Not yet," I said.
"But not never."
She nodded.
She didn't push.
She walked to her car and she drove away, and I stood at the window and watched her go, and this time it felt different from the baby shower.
May you like
This time it felt like the beginning of something very slow and very careful.
Which, I was learning, was sometimes how the most important things began.
