“Don’t talk to your mother like that,” he said.
“I’m not doing this here,” I replied.
But of course I was already doing it here, because they had decided I was.
Brittany folded her arms. “I can’t believe you’d make me stand when I’m pregnant.”
My exhaustion curdled into anger. Not loud anger. The dangerous, cold kind.
“I have sciatica, swollen feet, and a baby sitting on my bladder,” I said. “You have a positive test and an attitude.”
Daniel made a small sound beside me that might have been a laugh if the situation had been less volatile.
Brittany’s face turned red.
My mother straightened. “Get. Up.”
“No.”
I said it simply.
No explanation. No apology. Just no.
That word had always made my mother feral.
Her mouth opened.
I saw it happen in pieces after that, the way memory breaks trauma into sharp flashing images instead of one continuous moment.
My father moving behind me.
Daniel starting to rise.
