“Happy birthday, Emily,” she said. “I had this made especially for you.”
Thirty-five years old. A room full of people I loved. Candles on the table, a bottle of red wine already half gone, my husband’s hand resting warm on my back.
And for one stupid, hopeful second, I thought my mother-in-law was finally trying to make peace.
Everyone leaned closer.
I remember my fingers on the little gold clasp. I remember Thomas shifting in his chair. I remember my best friend Tara whispering, “Ooh, jewelry,” and my father-in-law, Matthew, reaching for the bread basket without looking up.I remember thinking, Maybe this is her way of saying sorry.
Then I opened the lid.
But I need to go back first. Because you can’t understand what happened in that room, what Matthew did, or why Susan screamed the way she did, unless you know what the four years before it looked like.
Thomas and I got married when I was thirty. We waited one year, because we wanted to be “just us” for a little while. We took a trip to Portugal. We painted our tiny house a color called Sea Glass that turned out to look like a hospital hallway, and we laughed about it for months.Then we started trying.
