Chapter 2 - The Theatre of Linen
The balloon arch was composed of eight hundred individual spheres of latex in three shades: blush, rose gold, and pearl. It had taken a professional decorator four hours to wire them to the aluminum frame that arched over the bay window in Diane’s parlor. Beneath it sat the wicker peacock chair, cushioned with a white sheepskin that smelled of mothballs and cedar.
I sat in the chair from two-fifteen until five-twelve.
My sister Melissa sat on the low stool to my left, holding a spiral notebook with a pink ballpoint pen, recording who had brought the silver porridge bowl, who had brought the three-pack of organic cotton sleep sacks, and who had contributed to the group gift—a high-end Scandinavian stroller with pneumatic tires and an aluminum chassis that was currently sitting in the entryway with a white satin ribbon around the handlebar.
"Aunt Clara," Melissa called out, her voice bright with that slightly manic energy she reserved for weddings and high-stakes real estate closings. "A pewter keepsake box for the first curl. Engraved with 'Ella Mitchell' on the lid."
Thirty women applauded. The sound was like dry leaves being stirred by a garden rake.
Ryan stood three feet behind my right shoulder. He wore his navy blazer now, the one with the brass buttons he had bought for his brother’s funeral three years ago, and he held a crystal flute of ginger ale with three raspberries floating at the rim. Every seven minutes, his hand would descend upon my shoulder—a heavy, warm weight that smelled of cedar and the faint, sweet trace of the lemon hand sanitizer he kept in his glove compartment.
"She’s been having Braxton Hicks since Thursday," Ryan said to Mrs. Henderson, whose husband sat on the bank board in town. He gave my shoulder a gentle, protective squeeze that pushed the seam of my maternity dress into the tender flesh above my collarbone. "We’re trying to keep her off her feet as much as possible, but she insisted on the full party. You know Hannah. Always thinks of everyone else first."
"Such a good husband," Mrs. Henderson sighed, adjusting her bifocals. She was seventy-four and had given us a hand-quilted blanket depicting twenty-four different breeds of songbirds. "My Harold wouldn't have known what a baby shower was if you'd hit him with the Bible. He spent the day our first was born at the stockyards in South St. Paul."
"Times change, Mrs. Henderson," Ryan smiled. The teeth were white, perfectly aligned, the product of four thousand dollars of adult orthodontia I had paid for out of my freelance editing retainer during our third year in the duplex. "We’re a team. That’s how we look at it."
I looked down at the pewter box in my lap. The name Ella was cut into the metal in a delicate, looping script. Beneath it, the date was left blank, two small dashes waiting for a day that felt increasingly like an appointment with a firing squad.
"Where is Kayla?" Melissa asked during a lull between the sixth diaper cake and the basket of board books from the elementary school staff. She didn't look up from her notebook, her pen poised over a line labeled Thompson, K. "I thought she was doing the ribbon bouquet for the rehearsal."
Ryan didn't miss a beat. "Migraine, Mel. Hit her like a truck about forty minutes before the doors opened. She could barely keep her eyes open to drive back to the apartment. I told her we’d save her a slice of the lemon curd."
"Shame," Melissa said, her pen scratching against the paper. "She had that whole binder of games. The one with the baby pictures of everyone."
"I have the binder," Diane’s voice came from the pantry door.
She was carrying a silver tray with forty small porcelain cups filled with mint punch. Her face was completely smooth, the skin around her mouth set in that mild, hospitable curve that had survived forty years of church suppers and volunteer committee meetings.
"We aren't doing the games today," Diane said, setting the tray on the side table beside the stroller. "Hannah looks tired. We’re going to open the blankets, we’re going to have the cake, and then we’re going to let this girl go home and put her feet above her heart."
A murmur of agreement went through the room—that soft, collective clucking of older women who recognize the grey look around a pregnant girl’s nostrils.
Ryan’s fingers tightened on my shoulder. Just enough to let me know the pressure was deliberate.
"Mom," he said, his voice dropping into that light, teasing register that always made the church ladies laugh, "the girls spent two weeks guessing the circumference of the nursery. You can't cheat them out of the prize."
"The prize is three bars of lavender soap from the drugstore, Ryan," Diane said without looking at him. She handed a cup of punch to Mrs. Henderson, then turned her grey eyes directly onto her son. "I think the ladies will survive the deprivation. Go cut the cake."
"The bakery said it needed to sit for forty minutes after being unboxed so the buttercream—"
"The cake is fine," Diane said. "Cut it."
He went. The room seemed to expand slightly as his back passed into the kitchen. The air grew cooler; the smell of the cedar soap faded, replaced by the damp, sweet scent of the tea roses Melissa had set on the mantelpiece.
"Hannah," Melissa whispered, leaning her head close to my knee under the pretense of collecting a ribbon from the floor. "What happened to your eye?"
"Nothing."
"The blood vessels are broken in the corner, Han. The whole left side is red."
"I was sick this morning," I said, the lie coming out of my mouth with a smoothness that frightened me. "Dry heaving. The doctor said the pressure does that."
Melissa looked at me for three long seconds. Her eyes were green, like our mother’s, and they had that sharp, investigative squint she had used since she was six years old and could tell when I had hidden the roller skates in the coal bin.
"He’s being too nice," she said.
"Melissa."
"He hasn't left your shoulder for two hours, Han. When Ryan is that attentive, it means he’s either about to buy a boat he can't afford or he’s crashed the car into the retaining wall and hasn't called the insurance yet."
"Not here," I muttered.
She looked toward the kitchen, where the knife was already clinking against the china plates. "All right. But I’m coming over tomorrow at eight. With the steamer for the curtains. And you’re going to tell me why Kayla Thompson’s car was parked behind the tire shop on Highway 18 when I drove in from the county line."
My fingers dug into the silver box until the edge of the lid bit through the skin of my thumb.
May you like
"What?"
"She wasn't at her apartment," Melissa said, her voice dropping into a hiss that was lost beneath the sudden rise of laughter from the dining room where Ryan was serving the first slices. "She was sitting behind the fence where they keep the old recaps, with the hazard lights on, talking on her mobile with her head between her knees. I blew the horn twice. She didn't even look up."
