Chapter 17 Magnolia
MAGNOLIA
The next few weeks were a minefield to navigate, and it was during this time that I finally found my voice.
First, there was Parker to convince. To be fair, I didn’t have to try too hard.
Parker was reluctant in the beginning, but for the first time in my life, I refused to back down.
I leaned hard into the whole terrible situation, telling him that Iris had nowhere else to go and that if she went back to Erik and got hurt again, it would be on his conscience.
I didn’t hold back at all. I think maybe that was what tripped Parker up the most, that I wasn’t acquiescing, wasn’t merely nodding and swallowing his words.
In the end, he agreed to let her stay for a couple of weeks while she figured out what to do.
The thing is, he didn’t understand why Iris couldn’t just go back to Mama and Papa’s house.
It was a fair question, but you really had to be there to understand why that wasn’t an option.
Mama called the day after Iris arrived at my house, asking why Erik was calling them nonstop, asking where the hell Iris was.
Iris agreed to let Mama and Papa come over so she could fill them in on the situation.
When they arrived, their mouths dropped open at the sight of her brutalized face, and Papa immediately asked if the baby was okay.
Not if Iris was okay, but if the baby was okay.
I felt a stab of irritation at that, but I pushed myself past it.
I was being too sensitive. After all, the baby was inside Iris’s belly, so it was a natural extension of Iris. Right?
In the living room, the four of us seated around cups of tea grown cold, Iris told them the bare-bones details; she and Erik had a disagreement that went bad.
Yes, Erik had done this before. No, she had never reported it to the authorities.
No, she wasn’t planning on pressing charges.
All fine, normal questions to ask, I thought, even though dread never stopped coiling in my belly.
Which was strange, because these were my parents, for god’s sake.
People I’d looked up to all my life. People whose words and lessons I’d trusted.
So, why then was there this awful tightness inside me, this wariness that kept my hackles raised no matter how many times I told myself to calm down?
Then Papa said, “Iris.” And from the tone of his voice, my entire body tensed. So did Iris’s. I put my hand over hers. “This is why we kept trying to teach you, time and again, to give in. Not to be so hotheaded.”
It felt as though I’d left my body. I hovered over the scene, watching the four of us hunched over our teacups, and I screamed silently at us, at everything, at how fucked up our culture was that this would be the reaction a father would give to his daughter who’d just gotten the shit beaten out of her.
I screamed at the utter helplessness I felt, because I knew that my distance from the situation granted me some clarity and that if it was me he was saying it to, my instinctive reaction would be that of guilt.
Of shame. Agreeing with him that it was my fault, that I had failed in my duties as a wife time and again, and my failure had pushed my husband into doing this, and how could I have placed this burden on him, the burden of educating me, didn’t my parents teach me right?
But because I was a third-party observer, I saw the fucked-up-ness of it all, and I felt my soul tearing from its confines, wrenching itself free from the bindings of tradition and duty.
“This isn’t her fault,” I said.
Mama’s head snapped up, displeasure and surprise written all over her face. How dare I disagree so openly with my father!
“Well, it’s not,” I pressed on. “Couples have disagreements, that’s normal. But to do this”—I gestured at Iris—“that’s not normal.”
“Of course it’s not normal,” Papa said. “I’m not saying that at all. Obviously Erik has…some issues he has to work on, but you need to help him overcome them. And one of the ways you can do that is by not provoking him.”
“You’re still blaming it on her!” I cried, incredulous at what was unfolding right before my eyes.
“Magnolia!” Mama hissed. “Don’t be rude to your father.”
I blinked at them, mouth open. “You are our parents. You’re supposed to protect us.
” Never before had I felt so betrayed, not even when Ellery told me she was leaving for London.
I’d always trusted fully that no matter what, our parents would always have our backs.
It felt like someone was taking a hammer to my carefully crafted image of my family.
“We are protecting you,” Mama said. “How can you not see that, you foolish child?” She turned to Iris.
“What’s the alternative here? You get divorced?
Your reputation would be ruined. Our reputation would be ruined.
” She glared at me. “What do you think Parker’s family will have to say about that? You think they’d be okay with it?”
As much as I wanted to tell her that it was none of their business, I knew she had a point.
You know as well as I do, Izzy, how a marriage in Indonesia isn’t just between two people but between two families.
And not just the core family but the entire clan.
If Iris were to get divorced, it would besmirch our family’s name, as well as Parker’s.
And Parker’s family would not be sympathetic at all.
But then I thought of all the sacrifices I had made to please Parker and his family, all the times I’d bent over backward to please them, to honor them, and I thought: Not this time.
“She’s right,” Iris said softly.
“What?” I said.
“Well, Parker’s family won’t be happy if I did get a divorce. It’s going to make things really hard for you.”
“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “I don’t care about them. We need to focus on what’s best for you. And the baby.”
“A baby needs two parents,” Papa said. “Not a broken family. What are you going to do, raise it as a single mother?” His voice dripped with derision. In the Chindo community, few things were considered as unsavory as single mothers.
“God forbid!” I moaned with exaggeration. “That’s almost as bad as raising a baby with an unhinged father who uses his wife as a punching bag!”
“Magnolia, watch your mouth,” Papa said, his displeasure giving way to anger.
Normally, I would back down at the first sign of anger.
Well, actually, normally I would never even have pushed this far.
But the ember inside me had well and truly caught fire, and there was no stopping me now.
I looked my father in the face, unblinking, and said, “Or what, Papa? Are you going to do the same thing to me that Erik did to Iris?”
Papa got to his feet and pointed a finger at me. My whole body felt like it was on fire. Something inside me was screaming to back down, but I sat there, frozen, staring up at him defiantly.
“Do not disrespect me like that,” he said in a low, dangerous tone.
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. Truth be told, I wanted to laugh. Who the fuck cared about disrespect right now? He’d just seen his eldest daughter’s face beaten beyond recognition, and he was upset because I was talking back to him?
He turned to Mama and his finger pointed at her. “Teach your daughter some manners before she embarrasses us.” With that, he strode out of the house, slamming the front door behind him.
There was a moment of silence, then Mama shook her head. “Why would you do that, Magnolia? What were you trying to do?”
“I was pointing out the fact that he was being a misogynist.”
Mama threw up her hands. “Stop being so American with your black-and-white thinking. You know Papa was trying to help.”
“No, he wasn’t. He was trying to save face. Everything you guys do is to save face. I just never thought it would come before protecting your own daughter.”
“We are trying to protect you! Both of you. I thought you were smart enough to see that.” Mama got to her feet and hugged her handbag to her side as though it were a baby.
I followed her to the foyer, bursting with a million things to say to her.
At the door, she paused long enough to mutter, “You were supposed to be the good one. Don’t let this destroy everything you’ve worked so hard to build. ” And with that, she was gone.
I looked around me, at the beautiful house I shared with my husband. This was everything I’d worked hard to build. And yet it had never felt emptier. It might as well be a Lego house I could smash apart with one swing of my fist. I walked back into the living room.
Iris met my eye. Then she deadpanned, “That went well.”
I snorted. Before I knew it, we were both doubled over with laughter, the wheezing, gasping-for-breath kind that left our faces tomato red.
We held hands, and I grinned at her familiar face and her huge belly and thought of the life growing inside it, and this.
This I hadn’t worked hard to build, but this, this was what felt real.
This was what was worth me risking everything for.
Dear Bellery,