Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Amy
Shannon named the group chat Inflated Ego Pin Poppers, which is either a description of what I did to James McCormick or a name for a children's birthday party game in Wellesley.
The texts haven't stopped since I stood up to James yesterday.
Shannon: I just got off the phone with Declan. James called him to say you MALIGNED HIS CHARACTER. Direct quote. He used the word maligned like it was a legal filing
Amanda: Andrew says James is "reassessing his relationship with the family"
Which is what he says every time someone tells him the truth.
He reassessed after Thanksgiving, when Declan told him he couldn't bring a date unless they were born before the iPhone debuted. He reassessed when Andrew asked him to stop calling Amanda "Pam's daughter."
Shannon: He reassesses the way other people do laundry. Regularly, reluctantly, and only because things are starting to smell
Me: Is he actually upset or is this performance art?
Shannon: Both. He's upset AND performing. He called Declan and said, "Your sister-in-law attacked me on a professional call." Declan said, "Which part was inaccurate?" and James hung up on him
Amanda: Andrew is being so calm about it. He told James that Amy said what every person in this family has thought for years and that maybe he should listen instead of litigate. I'm so proud of him. I'm also crying. Sorry. Hormones
Shannon: You're always crying
Amanda: I KNOW. It's a MIRACLE
I'm sitting on the couch with my feet up, the cursed cow-giraffe plush wedged behind my lower back because it's the only object in this apartment with the right density to hit the spot that's been aching since yesterday. The plush has finally found its purpose in life: lumbar support.
Shannon: But seriously, Amy, thank you. We've both been dealing with James's crap for YEARS.
Me: You're welcome. I didn't plan it. I just... ran out of tolerance
Shannon: That's the best kind of takedown. The ones where you're not even trying. You just open your mouth and truth falls out like a slot machine
Amanda: What did Hamish say?
Me: He called me his hero. Then he went back on live television
Shannon: That man is a golden retriever who married a honey badger and I mean that as the highest compliment to both of you
I laugh so hard, the baby kicks in protest, a solid thump against my ribs that says, Excuse me, I'm trying to sleep. Which is rich coming from someone who spent last night using my bladder as a trampoline.
The chat keeps rolling and something in me settles as I read it. The satisfaction of having said the thing is there, sweet and sharp, like biting into one of Kristin's glazed donuts. But underneath it is something bigger. Quieter, like finding a secret door in a wall you thought was solid.
I don't want to go back to Anterdec.
Not because of James. James is a problem I've already solved.
Because the version of me who walked into that building every morning, badge clipped to her blazer, inbox overflowing, identity braided so tightly with her job title that you couldn't see where Amy ended and Senior Director of Crisis Communications began—she served her purpose. I'm grateful to her.
And I'm done.
The wide-open space of my life is right here, in this condo, with a baby who is head down and ready, a husband who is somewhere across the Atlantic being told to quit bantering, and a future that doesn't have a flowchart yet.
This is the lightest I've felt in months. Coyote was right: I put the fearbag down, and my hands are free. I don't know what I'm reaching for yet, but the reaching feels good.
My phone rings. An actual call. Someone over fifty is trying to reach me, or it's bad news, or both.
Looks like both. It's the COO.
Gregory Hannover navigates corporate politics with the surgical precision of someone who has survived four CEOs, three restructurings, and one holiday party where the head of sales did karaoke to "My Heart Will Go On" while standing on a conference table. He is unblinkable.
He's also in his late fifties and dresses like Tim Gunn.
"Amy. I'm calling because James McCormick does not have unilateral termination authority over anyone in your division. That's my call. I haven't made it, and I'm not going to."
"Appreciated, Gregory."
"Your position is active. HR hasn't processed a separation. As far as the system is concerned, yesterday didn't happen."
As far as the system is concerned. Gregory speaks in systems the way other people speak in sentences.
"I'd like to come back," I say. "But not like it was before."
A pause. Not a dramatic one. A calculating one. Gregory Hannover doesn't do drama.
He does budgets.
"Different in what way?"
"Part-time, fully remote. Full benefits. Double my previous rate."
"That's a significant restructure, Amy."
"Gregory, four of my accounts called this morning asking if I'd left."
The pause changes the feel of this conversation. He can do that math faster than I can sneeze.
"Three," he says. "Three of them called."
"Three accounts called you. Four called me."
Another pause. I let it sit.
"I can do part-time, remote, and the benefits," Gregory says finally. "The rate increase, I'll authorize at one and a half times your current. Not double."
"One-seven-five."
"One-six-five, and I'll waive the minimum billing hours for the first quarter."
I do the math. One sixty-five is still a sixty-five percent raise with no commute, no office, no James breathing down my neck, and the freedom to work from my couch in yoga pants while my daughter uses my nipple as a squeeze toy.
"Done," I say.
"I'll have the revised agreement drafted by end of week."
We hang up. I sit in the quiet and feel the dopamine spread through my bloodstream like warm sugar, immediate and earned.
I text Hamish, who came home late last night, slept, and went to Vince's this afternoon.
Me: I got my job back. Part-time. Big raise. Full remote. Full benefits
Hamish: !!!!!!
Hamish: Amy that's brILLIANT
Hamish: You absolute weapon
Hamish: Does this mean you can work from London?
Me: It means I can work from anywhere
Hamish replies with three Scottish flag emojis.
I stare at that and feel something snag in my chest. A small, quiet tug that says my freedom is being co-opted by his mother's vision of our life.
No.
I set the phone down and push myself off the couch.
At thirty-four weeks this involves the core engagement of a gymnast and the grace of a sea lion hauling itself onto a rock.
I'm halfway to the kitchen when a spasm grabs my lower back, low and deep, a pain that makes you freeze mid-step and negotiate with your skeleton.
"Ow," I say to no one.
The baby shifts. My back releases. I keep walking.
This has been happening for two days. A deep, dull ache that settles into my sacrum and then radiates outward.
I blamed it on the leg presses. Four plates at thirty-four weeks is ambitious even for me.
Vince warned me about loading my lumbar.
I told him my lumbar was fine, and he gave me the look he gives people who need to learn lessons the hard way.
I make a mental note to get Tina's number and ask about working out together next week.
She was funny and direct, telling me I'll push this baby out with my asshole, which is bestie material, right?
The idea of having a friend who isn't related to me by blood, marriage, or McCormick proximity feels like a window opening in a room that's been stuffy for months.
Life is good.
I say it out loud, testing it. "Life is good." The baby kicks once, a lazy thump of agreement. The cow-giraffe plush lies face down on the floor, defeated, which feels appropriate given that it was cursed from the start.
Hamish comes home from Vince's around six, smelling like chalk and Tiger Balm. He drops his bag, kisses me, puts both hands on my belly, and says, "How's ma wee girl?"
"Your wee girl spent the afternoon sitting on my bladder. I've peed eleven times since lunch."
"Bronwyn loves the flesh waterbed ye're providing fer her."
He grins and wraps himself around me from behind, careful with the belly, his chin on my shoulder. I lean back into him and enjoy his warmth spreading through me. His hands find the spot where my back has been hurting and he presses, firm and knowing. I groan.
"Ye're tight here," he says, thumbs working circles into my sacrum. "Did ye overdo it at the gym?"
"Your child needs a strong mother."
"Ma child needs a mother wi' a functioning spine, pet."
His hands keep working and the ache loosens and something else loosens with it.
His mouth finds the side of my neck, warm and unhurried.
I tip my head to give him access, because when Hamish McCormick puts his mouth on my neck while his hands are on my lower back, my higher brain functions are served an eviction notice. They don't leave a forwarding address.
"Hi," he murmurs against my skin.
"Hi," I reply. My voice has dropped to a register that means we're not going to make it to dinner.
We don't make it to dinner.
We make it to the bedroom, where he undresses me slowly, peeling my shirt over my head, sliding the maternity leggings down over my hips, his hands following every curve like he's memorizing the landscape.
At first, I was self-conscious about my body at this stage—the stretched skin, the heaviness, the light brown line running down my belly, a seam holding me together.
But Hamish has never once looked at my pregnant body with anything other than hunger and wonder.
"Ye're gorgeous," he says, and it's not a compliment. It's a fact he's reporting, in the same way he'd say the sky is blue or his knee is dodgy. Just data.
Sexy data.