She was arranging dishes for her church friends like she was setting a table for royalty.
“The hospital?” she said flatly when I told her I was in labor. “Dinner comes first.”
I laughed at first, because the alternative was to believe her.
“Mom, I’m serious,” I said. “It’s time.”
Jessica leaned in the doorway, arms folded, smiling the way she always smiled when life was hurting somebody else. “You’re always dramatic, Emily. Not every stomach cramp is a national emergency.”
Then my water broke.
It ran warm down my legs and onto the tile. I stared at it in shock, and Ryan, who had been sitting at the table coloring, looked up at me with those huge frightened eyes children get when they know something is terribly wrong before any adult admits it.
“Mommy?” he whispered.
I grabbed the counter so hard my knuckles went white. “I need the car keys. Now.”
Margaret’s face didn’t soften. Not even a little. “My guests will be here in twenty minutes.”
I thought she meant she would call an ambulance after they ate. That was how badly I still wanted to believe there was some tiny scrap of decency left in her.
But Jessica laughed, took my purse off the chair, and dangled the keys in front of me. “Maybe your baby can wait until dessert.”
I moved toward her, but another contraction folded me in half. By the time I straightened again, she was already outside.
A minute later, Ryan screamed.
I stumbled to the front door and saw my sister standing in the driveway with a red gas can in her hand. My SUV was already wet down the side. For one frozen second I could not understand what I was seeing. Then Jessica struck a lighter.
The flames caught so fast it looked like the car had been waiting to die.
Orange fire roared up the side of the vehicle, heat hitting my face from twenty feet away. My mother stood behind me on the porch and said, with total disgust, “Another useless human? What’s the point?”
I don’t know which hurt more, the words or the certainty in her voice.
