The apartment tilted, then settled back into place in pieces: the chipped mug in the sink, the grocery list under my magnet from Fort Stewart, the envelope of cash on the table that was supposed to buy protein shakes and prenatal vitamins, and Brett’s muddy boots on the rug Marcus bought me before he deployed. Monica stood by the table with my wallet open in her hands. She was wearing white jeans in February, which felt like exactly the kind of choice Monica would make before walking into someone else’s home and calling them disgusting. Her nails were glossy pink, her mouth pinched into that little smile she used whenever she knew she had an audience. “Gold digger,” she hissed. Then she spat on me.
It landed warm and wet on my cheek, just below the place her mother’s handprint was already blooming. For a second I couldn’t move. I heard the refrigerator humming. I heard Brett laugh under his breath. I heard one of the twins flutter low inside me, like a tiny fish startled in dark water. I wiped my face with the sleeve of Marcus’s old Army hoodie. “Please,” I said. My voice sounded thin, not like mine. “Just leave the grocery money. I need it for the shakes.” Brett pulled the bills from the envelope and fanned them out like he was counting chips at a casino. “Looks like a lot of shakes.”
“It’s one week,” I said. “The doctor said—” “The doctor,” Sandra cut in. “The doctor says whatever you pay him to say.” I stared at her. That was the thing about Sandra: she didn’t yell nonsense like a person out of control. She yelled like a woman who had rehearsed every line in her car on the way over. She had used the key again. The copied one she swore she didn’t have. I had been on the couch with my feet up, trying to follow the bed-rest instructions taped to the fridge, when the lock clicked and the three of them walked in as if they owned the place. My goal had been simple: stay calm. Keep my blood pressure down. Do not give Sandra the scene she wanted. Do not make Marcus worry while he was half a world away.
But then Monica started opening drawers. Then Brett took my wallet. Then Sandra found the money. “You’re stealing from us while he’s gone,” Sandra said. “From you?” I whispered. “My son sends that money home.” “To his home,” I said before I could stop myself. Her eyes narrowed. That was the moment I knew I had made a mistake. Sandra took one step closer. The overhead light caught the silver in her hair and the cross at her throat. She wore that cross every day, big enough for everyone to notice, heavy enough to swing when she raised her arm. “You think this is your home because you got knocked up?” she said. “You think carrying those babies makes you family?”
The twins shifted again. I put both hands over them. “I am his wife,” I said. Monica laughed. “Barely. A courthouse wedding before deployment? That’s not romance. That’s strategy.” Brett folded the bills and tucked them into his jacket pocket. “Marcus would want his real family taken care of.” There it was again. Real family. They had been saying it for eight months. Sometimes to my face, sometimes just loud enough at family gatherings before Marcus deployed. His real family needed him. His real family knew him. His real family didn’t need paperwork or a positive pregnancy test to matter. I looked at Sandra and tried one last time. “Marcus knows about every dollar in this apartment,” I said. “He knows what I spend. He knows what the doctors cost. He knows—” “He knows what you tell him,” Sandra snapped.
A dull ache pulsed behind my eyes. I had not told Marcus everything. I had told him about the babies kicking. I had told him Mrs. Chun next door made dumplings too spicy for me but I ate them anyway. I had told him I slept with his T-shirt under my pillow and that the jasmine candle he hated had finally burned down. I had not told him his mother came by when she knew I was alone. I had not told him Monica called me “deployment trash” in the parking lot of the clinic. I had not told him Brett once leaned into my doorway and asked how much a widow got if a staff sergeant didn’t come home. I had kept those things folded inside me, neat and quiet, because Marcus needed to survive Afghanistan. He did not need to picture me crying on the kitchen floor over missing grocery cash. Sandra must have seen something break across my face, because her smile came back. “That’s right,” she said softly. “You know what you are.”
My phone buzzed on the counter. All four of us looked at it. For one wild second I thought it might be Marcus. But the screen was facedown, and I was too dizzy to reach for it. Monica picked it up first. “Don’t,” I said. She glanced at the screen. Something flickered in her expression. Not guilt. Not fear exactly. More like surprise. “Who’s Williams?” she asked. My stomach tightened. I had seen that name before. Sergeant Williams. One of Marcus’s friends from his unit. He had messaged me twice after Marcus asked him to check whether my care packages arrived. Nice man. Big laugh in the background of phone calls. Always called me ma’am even though I told him not to. “What does it say?” Sandra demanded. Monica’s thumb hovered. “Don’t read my messages,” I said, louder this time. Monica smiled and slipped the phone into her back pocket. My mouth went dry. “Give it back.” “Or what?” Brett said. I took one step toward him. Sandra raised her hand again. That was when the front door slammed open so hard the chain lock snapped against the wall. Cold air rushed into the apartment, carrying the smell of rain and asphalt and something metallic from the stairwell. A shadow filled the doorway, tall and broad, boots planted on the threshold. For half a heartbeat, my mind refused to understand what my body already knew. Then I saw the uniform, the duffel bag dropping from one hand, and Marcus’s face changing from joy to rage. And all I could think was: How much had he seen?