8. Dulcie
DULCIE
Magnus’s invitation is an instruction until I tell him I’m not sure I’m going.
He stands at the kitchen counter with an envelope in his hand. His mother has sent the details for the family lunch, although everyone concerned has already heard about it.
“Your mother’s been invited,” he says.
“I know. She told me.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
I close the dishwasher. I have been waiting five days for a moment when neither of us is leaving, working, or pretending the other is asleep. Now that it is here, I want to put it off.
I smooth the front of my dress over my belly. Thirty-four weeks and five days. The numbers have started to sound like a clock I can hear in every room.
“The baby’s name,” I say.
Magnus sets the envelope down. “We’re back to that.”
“We never agreed on it.”
“You’ve made your feelings clear.”
“And the godmother book.”
“What about it?”
“It’s still on the shelf.”
His gaze goes past me toward the sitting room. He knows where it is. I want to ask whether he ever notices it when I am not standing beside him telling him what it means.
Instead, I pull out a chair and sit.
“If this lunch is going to include an announcement about the baby, I’m not coming.”
“Of course the baby will be mentioned.”
“I said an announcement.”
“Be precise, then.”
The invitation to be precise sounds so much like the beginning of being heard that I have to steady myself before I answer.
“No announcement of Benedict. No announcement that Cressida is the godmother. Nothing presented to the family as our decision unless you and I have made it together.”
He leans a hip against the counter. “It’s a family lunch.”
“Then those conditions shouldn’t be difficult.”
“You’re making conditions for seeing my family now?”
“I’m telling you what I’m willing to attend.”
He watches me. I can feel how hard it is for him not to dismiss the whole conversation. I know because I have seen him dismiss smaller ones. Where I want to sit. Whether I need a coat. Which route I should take to work, even when he has never taken that bus himself.
This time I have somewhere to go afterward if I need it.
He doesn’t know that.
The thought gives me a little room inside my own body.
“Do you intend to refuse every invitation while you’re angry with me?”
“No. I’m asking for one lunch where I don’t have to hear someone else announce decisions about my child.”
“Our child.”
“Then decide with me.”
He taps one finger against the envelope. I watch the movement until he stops it.
“All right.”
I look up.
“No announcement,” he says.
“About either thing.”
“Yes.”
“And nothing else you’ve arranged without me.”
“Dulcie, I said all right.”
I need to stop there. I can hear the irritation thickening his voice. The old habit tells me to accept the opening I have been given and not damage it by wanting too much.
But I remember the book leaving my hand.
“Say what you’re agreeing to.”
He straightens. For a second, I think he will walk away.
Then he says, slowly, “There will be no announcement of a name, no announcement of a godmother, and nothing presented as decided unless we’ve agreed on it together.”
The relief is immediate and humiliating in its size.
I have asked for something ordinary. A husband discussing their child with his wife. Yet I feel as if I have been holding my breath for weeks and have finally been allowed to let it go.
“Thank you.”
“Will you come?”
“Yes.”
He picks up the envelope again. “We’ll leave here at twelve.”
For a moment I want him to touch me. Not to end the argument; it is already over. I want some recognition that getting here has cost us something, that he has noticed the distance between us and wants to close it for a reason I can trust.
He checks his phone.
“I need to finish a call before dinner.”
“Of course.”
He leaves me at the kitchen table with the invitation.
I read it twice. It says nothing about a name. Nothing about Cressida. Just lunch, family, a celebration of the baby coming soon.
Perhaps this is what progress looks like. Smaller than I hoped. Harder to get. Still something I could build on if he keeps his word.
I let myself sit with that hope for a minute.
In the quiet, the baby presses hard against my side.
I move my palm over the spot until he eases away.
I had imagined sharing these small things with Magnus without first checking whether we were speaking.
A nudge beneath his hand. An argument about whose nose the baby would inherit.
Tonight I want to go into the study and tell him our son is awake.
I stay where I am. If I carry every small opening to him as though it is a gift he has earned, I will never find out whether he means to come toward me himself.
The baby shifts again. I smile down at my belly. He can have this smile without sharing it with his father.
Then I call the owner of the blue-doored house and confirm the start date.
Mom answers while I am standing in front of the guest-room closet.
“He promised,” I tell her.
“What did he promise?”
I repeat the words. I remember them exactly.
She is quiet, and I feel myself preparing to defend him.
“Mom?”
“I’m glad you told him clearly.”
“I think he understood.”
“I hope so.”
I take a dress from its hanger and hold it against myself. It is dark blue, soft enough not to catch across my belly, with sleeves that make me feel dressed rather than decorated. I bought it before the pregnancy. It still fits because I liked it loose then.
“I’m going with him,” I say. “But will you drive yourself?”
“Yes.”
“If it goes badly, I might need to leave with you.”
“You can.”
She doesn’t ask how badly. She doesn’t say it will be all right. Her certainty about the part she can actually promise makes my throat tighten.
“I haven’t canceled the house.”
“Good.”
“You don’t think I’m being unfair?”
“To whom?”
The question stops me.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Then get some sleep. We’ll see what happens when we see it.”
After we hang up, I lay the dress over the chair. I put a spare set of my parents’ keys into my bag, along with my wallet, the papers I don’t want to leave behind, and a charger. The green duck book and my notebook are already in the tote at the bottom of the closet.
I am not moving out tonight.
I am not pretending I have nowhere to go either.
When I wash my hands before bed, my wedding band catches against the towel. I turn it once, feeling the small familiar pressure of it against my skin.
He made another promise when he put it there.
I stand at the sink until the water runs cold, then switch it off and leave the ring where it is.