He had not forgotten. The green dress had been hanging on the outside of my closet door for four days.
Downstairs, our eight-year-old daughter, Piper, had arranged three battery-powered candles in the center of the dining table because Grant’s mother disliked “harsh overhead lighting.” Piper was old enough to notice when adults were unkind and young enough to believe it was her job to soften the room afterward.
“You look pretty, Mom,” she said when I came down.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
Grant carried one casserole from the kitchen and accepted compliments as if he had cooked the entire meal. In reality, I had ordered the food from a local postpartum meal service using a gift certificate from my older sister, Mara. I had plated everything because Grant said foil containers looked cheap.
For the first twenty minutes, the conversation stayed on the babies. Who had the most hair. Which one looked like Grant. Whether Owen’s nose came from the Mercer side.
Then Nora stirred in the portable bassinet beside me, and I bent carefully to lift her.
Tessa watched me stand.
“So,” she said, swirling the ice in her glass, “when are you planning to get your body back?”
The table went quiet in that special way a room does when everyone knows something cruel has been said but no one wants to surrender the entertainment by objecting.
I settled Nora against my shoulder. “I didn’t realize it had gone anywhere.”
Grant’s brother coughed into his napkin.
Tessa smiled. She was forty, polished, and marketing director for ForgeWell Fitness, a chain of expensive gyms with eucalyptus towels and membership fees that required financing.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “You used to be so tiny.”
“She carried three babies,” Piper said.
My mother-in-law, Evelyn, gave her a warning look. “Adults are talking.”
Then she turned to me.
“Tessa is only concerned. When I had Grant, I was back in my old slacks before my six-week checkup.”
“You had one baby,” I said.
“And I didn’t make excuses.”
Nora gave a small sigh against my shoulder. I stared at the pale fuzz along the crown of her head and reminded myself that she was safe, fed, and loved. I reminded myself that the people at the table did not get to define the body that had brought her here.
Then Grant laughed.
It was not a nervous laugh. It was the easy, conspiratorial sound he used with coworkers when someone made a joke at another person’s expense.
“Everybody relax,” he said. “I’ve already handled it.”
I looked at him. “Handled what?”
“Your comeback.”
