Chapter 4 #3
The sound continued through the floor, uneven but not panicked. Garrett spoke over it, his voice calm at first, then more insistent as he tried to persuade the baby into accepting the bottle. Miranda washed her face, brushed her teeth, and counted slowly to sixty before opening the bathroom door.
By the time she reached the kitchen, Garrett sat at the table with Owen against one forearm and the bottle held in the other hand. The baby had taken perhaps an ounce. Milk gathered around the edge of his mouth while he stared at Garrett with betrayed concentration.
“He’s eating,” Garrett said before Miranda could speak.
“I can see that.”
Garrett looked down at the bottle. “He fought me for ten minutes, but he’s eating.”
Miranda crossed to the coffee maker and found it already filled. A clean mug waited beside it, the one with the blue handle she always chose first.
“He’ll take it if he’s hungry enough,” she said.
Garrett’s eyes lifted. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
“No.”
“Because everything seems to mean something now.”
Miranda poured coffee and watched the dark stream fill the mug. “That must be exhausting for you.”
Garrett gave a short breath that might have become a laugh under different circumstances. “This is what I mean.”
She added cream and carried the mug to the opposite side of the table. Garrett had made toast but had not eaten it. One slice rested on a plate near his elbow, cooling beneath a thin layer of butter.
Owen released the nipple and began to complain. Garrett tried again, touching it to his lower lip until the baby turned his face away.
“He wants you,” Garrett said.
Miranda took a sip of coffee. “He’s had enough for now.”
“He barely ate.”
“He’ll eat again.”
Garrett looked at her across the table. “Are you refusing to feed him because you’re angry with me?”
The accusation was quiet, which made it worse.
Miranda set down the mug. “Do you really think I would punish Owen to make a point?”
“I don’t know what you’re doing.”
“You just watched him take a bottle.”
“He is still hungry.”
“He is tired.” Miranda reached across the table and touched one finger beneath Owen’s chin. The baby caught it instantly, his grip warm and damp. “He woke three times last night.”
Garrett’s expression changed. “Why didn’t you bring him to me?”
“Because I could feed him faster than I could wake you, explain what he needed, and lie awake listening while you tried.”
“You didn’t even give me the chance.”
“I did not owe you an opportunity to demonstrate something at three in the morning.”
Garrett leaned back, Owen held securely against his chest. “You have decided I fail before I do anything.”
“No. I have stopped pretending the effort costs us the same.”
The words struck him more deeply than Miranda expected. He looked down at Owen, who had begun to close his eyes around Miranda’s finger, and for a moment Garrett’s anger loosened into something less certain.
Then his phone vibrated on the counter.
Neither of them looked immediately. The sound stopped, leaving a small silence behind it.
Garrett rose with Owen in his arms and crossed the kitchen. He glanced at the screen, turned the phone facedown, and carried their son toward the living room.
Miranda did not ask who had called.
She already knew from the way Garrett had chosen not to tell her.
Miranda watched him settle into the corner of the sofa with Owen stretched along his chest. Garrett kept one broad hand over the baby’s back and reached for the remote with the other, turning on the television without sound.
He had always needed some kind of background movement when he was angry, something he could look at without admitting he was avoiding the person in the room.
She remained at the kitchen table with her coffee growing cooler between her hands. The phone on the counter vibrated again, shorter this time, followed by the muted tap of another notification. Garrett did not turn his head, but his thumb stopped moving over the remote.
Miranda looked toward the black screen lying facedown beside the fruit bowl.
Willa had spent all of yesterday reaching into their house from a room Miranda used to occupy, and now she was doing it before seven on a Sunday morning.
The timing felt intimate in a way the messages themselves did not need to be.
“You should answer it,” Miranda said.
Garrett kept his attention on the television.
A man in a bright jacket pointed toward a lake while captions rolled beneath him, describing wind conditions and water temperature.
Garrett had recorded the fishing program weeks ago and forgotten about it, but now he watched with the intensity of someone awaiting test results.
“I don’t need to,” he said.
“It’s obviously important.”
“You don’t know who it is.”
Miranda rested both hands around the mug. “Then tell me.”
Garrett looked over at her. Owen’s cheek had flattened against his chest, leaving his mouth open and damp against the cotton of Garrett’s shirt.
“You want me to prove it isn’t Willa,” he said.
“I want you to stop behaving as though the truth is another thing I’m unreasonable for asking about.”
His face tightened. “It’s Dennis.”
Miranda waited.
Garrett glanced toward the phone, then back at the muted television. “He wants to know if I can jump on a call later. Apparently the caterer is disputing the refund from yesterday.”
“At seven in the morning.”
“He’s awake early.”
“So is Willa.”
The words came out before Miranda decided to say them. Garrett’s head turned sharply, and Owen stirred at the movement, making a small disgruntled sound before burrowing closer.
“I told you it’s Dennis,” Garrett said.
“You told me Dennis texted. You didn’t tell me who called.”
“No one called.”
“The phone rang.”
“It vibrated.”
Miranda looked at him across the space between the kitchen and living room. The distinction was so small that it revealed how badly he needed one.
“Fine,” she said. “Who vibrated?”
Garrett’s mouth flattened. “I’m not doing this.”
“That has become your favorite sentence.”
“Because every answer creates another accusation.” He shifted Owen higher, then lowered his voice when the baby’s face tightened again. “You say you want honesty, but what you actually want is a confession.”
“A confession to what?”
“I don’t know. Whatever version of this makes your reaction feel justified.”
Miranda felt the heat rise beneath her skin. She set the mug down before her hand tightened enough to spill it.
“My reaction does not need your approval to be justified.”
“That is not what I said.”
“It is what you keep saying.” Miranda pushed back from the table and stood, though she had nowhere she intended to go.
“You think if you can prove you didn’t sleep with her, didn’t lie about the basket, didn’t personally remove my name from the website, then I am left with nothing except hormones and jealousy. ”
Garrett looked toward Owen, but this time the gesture did not soften him. “You are jealous.”
Miranda went still.
He seemed almost relieved to have said it. The word had hovered around them since yesterday, present in every explanation he offered and every careful reference to her exhaustion, but he had avoided using it directly because he knew what it would sound like.
Now that it was out, he leaned into it.
“You are jealous of Willa,” Garrett said.
“You’re jealous that she’s at work and you’re not.
You’re jealous that she looked good yesterday and people were paying attention to her.
You’re jealous because I gave her something expensive, and instead of admitting that, you keep turning it into this huge statement about our marriage. ”
For a second, Miranda could not hear anything beyond the pulse in her ears. The television continued silently behind him, the lake on the screen bright and glassy beneath the morning sun.
Garrett watched her with the wary certainty of someone who believed he had finally named the truth everyone else was avoiding. He did not look cruel. That made it worse.
“Do you think I’m jealous of her job?” Miranda asked.
“I think you miss yours.”
“That was my job.”
“I know.”
“No, you keep saying you know while speaking as though I walked away from it because I got bored.”
“I did not say that.”
“You said I’m jealous because she’s there and I’m not.” Miranda pressed one hand against the edge of the table. “I am not standing outside a restaurant wishing I had ordered what she ordered. She is sitting in my chair.”
Garrett let out a slow breath. “Your chair is not a real thing.”
“My clients are real. My title is real. My work is real.”
“And you are still employed.”
“Am I?”
The question changed the room. Garrett’s expression shifted, irritation interrupted by something closer to concern, but he did not answer immediately.
Miranda saw the hesitation and hated how quickly fear filled the space he left open. Yesterday, she had searched for herself on the company website because the omission felt insulting. This morning, the absence felt like evidence.
“You said the agreement protects me,” she continued. “Have you read it?”
“No.” The word came out clipped, already defensive.
“Have you spoken to HR?”
“No, because there has been no reason to.”
“Then you don’t know.”
“I know companies don’t just eliminate someone’s job while she is on maternity leave.” He kept his voice even in the way that meant he was working to keep it even.
“They changed my title without telling me.”
“They changed Willa’s title.”
“To mine.”
Garrett shifted Owen again, though the baby had not moved. “It could be the same title for both of you.”
“Then why is only one of us on the website?”
He looked at the muted television. The man in the bright jacket had been replaced by footage of open water. “I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that after telling me I’m wrong.”
“I’m telling you not to assume the worst based on a staff page.”
“Why not?”
“Because you are upset.” He said it gently, which was the most condescending way he could have said it.
Miranda stared at him. “There it is.”