22. Dulcie
DULCIE
Arthur calls while I am trying to eat a sandwich over Kit’s head without dropping anything on him.
“Have I got you at a bad time?”
“No. I’m eating over his head, that’s all.”
“Then I’ll be quick. How is he?”
“Good. Loud. Awake more than I’d like.”
Kit kicks one foot against my arm. I move the plate farther away and put the phone on speaker.
Arthur asks about the night, then about my parents. He has called twice since the birth, pleased by the name when I told him, careful about everything else. I have not given him an account of Dorothea’s lunch. He knows Magnus and I are living apart because I told him that too.
Today he keeps returning to small things after I think he has finished asking them.
“Is something wrong?”
He pauses. “I’ve received an announcement. I wanted to check with you before I did anything with it.”
The sandwich becomes difficult to swallow.
“What announcement?”
“A card from Dorothea’s household. About the birth.”
I sit forward carefully, keeping Kit supported against me.
“What does it say?”
“Benedict Ludlow. His birth date. Cressida as godmother.”
For a moment I am back in the jeweler’s shop, looking at a name cut into silver. Magnus beside me, waiting for me to stop objecting so we can leave.
“Can you take a picture of it and send it to me?”
“Of course.”
“Both sides, please.”
He tells me to give him a moment. I hear a chair move, then his quiet annoyance at whatever the phone is doing. Kit stretches against me. I look down and find his eyes open.
“Hello, you,” I whisper.
Arthur comes back. “You should have it.”
I open the photograph. Thick cream stock, dark lettering, the elegant spacing that makes an instruction look like good manners. The name is exactly as he said. So is the date. Beneath it, Cressida is announced as godmother in a smaller line.
The second photograph shows Dorothea’s return address on the envelope.
I enlarge the first picture until the letters fill the screen.
There is no note saying this was an old order sent by mistake.
It announces a child who has been here five weeks, a mother who apparently need not be consulted, a godmother whose place is presented as fact.
I can almost hear Dorothea telling someone it has all been settled.
Kit moves his cheek against my arm. I lower the phone so I can see his actual face.
“You didn’t send this,” Arthur says.
“No. My son’s name is Kit. Cressida isn’t his godmother.”
“That’s what I understood.”
“Keep it, please.”
“I will.”
He asks whether I want him to speak to Dorothea. I look at the card again.
“Not before I speak to Magnus.”
“All right.”
He doesn’t ask whether I am certain. When we finish the call, I leave the picture open beside my plate. I need to know I have actually seen it.
Kit is asleep in his bassinet when the next call comes.
The number belongs to Magnus’s aunt. She was at the lunch, beside Mom, close enough to hear every word.
“I wanted to congratulate you on little Benedict,” she says. “I thought I’d give you time to settle.”
I look at the sleeping baby beside me.
“His name is Kit.”
“Oh. The announcement said?—”
“I know. Arthur sent me a photograph. I didn’t approve it.”
There is a small silence, the kind that expects me to fill it with an apology for being awkward.
“Your mother-in-law was only trying to do something lovely for the family.”
“She used a name I refused before he was born.”
“Dulcie, I know it’s been a difficult time. Birth can make everything feel rather large.”
My free hand closes against my knee.
“This happened before the birth.”
“Well, yes, but you’re both parents now. Surely Magnus has been punished enough.”
“Who told you I was punishing him?”
She exhales. “Dorothea is worried. She says you became overwhelmed and now the baby is being used to prolong a disagreement.”
“A tantrum?”
“I wouldn’t have chosen that word.”
The careful phrasing is the answer.
“You were at the table,” I say. “You heard me ask him why he married me. You heard his answer.”
“People say things in an argument.”
“He married me to have a child and planned to replace me with Cressida. He expected me to live nearby and accept it. That wasn’t something I invented because I was upset. It was what he intended before the wedding.”
Kit makes a small sound. I stand and lay my hand lightly beside him. He settles.
“These are private matters,” she says.
“Then you shouldn’t call me to explain my part in them.”
“There’s no need to take that tone. Send your mother-in-law a picture of the two of you. Let everyone see you’re being reasonable.”
I look at my son. His cheek is soft against the sheet, his mouth slightly open. She wants his face and mine to make the card seem harmless.
“No.”
“Dulcie—”
“You can call him Kit if you want to ask about him. I won’t send a photograph to prove I deserve to be listened to.”
I end the call before she decides how to answer.
My hand shakes as I put the phone down. I stand beside the bassinet until it stops.
Then I call Magnus.
He answers with my name.
“Your mother has sent birth announcements,” I say. “Benedict. Cressida as godmother. Arthur received one. So did your aunt, who has just told me to stop punishing you.”
“What?”
I send him the photographs while we are still connected.
“They’re on your phone.”
He is silent long enough to open them.
“I didn’t know she had done this.”
“Then now you do.”
“Yes.”
I sit on the sofa because I don’t want my anger to disappear into how tired I am.
“I don’t want another private conversation where you tell her I’m upset. I want every person who received that card told the truth. By you. In your name.”
“They will be.”
“You announced Benedict and Cressida in front of those people. They think this is me changing my mind about something I agreed to.”
“I know what I told them.”
“I don’t want to come and watch you fix it.”
“You don’t have to.”
I press my fingers to my eyes. For weeks I have been choosing what to tell him, deciding what I can bear to hear, keeping the shape of my life from becoming an argument. For once he is not asking for a better explanation before he acts.
“Today,” I say.
“I’ll handle it today.”
When we end the call, the problem still exists. The cards are still in people’s houses. I don’t know what he will say when he walks into his mother’s.
But I don’t have to go there to make the first refusal myself.
Kit wakes, drawing his knees up before he opens his eyes. I lift him and sit with him against me.
“Kit,” I say, just to hear it in the room.
He makes a small dissatisfied noise.
“Yes. You. Lunch again, apparently.”