Chapter 3 - The Party

Friday night, Derek came home practically bouncing on his heels.

"So," he announced, cracking open a beer he hadn't paid for, "I'm throwing a pool party. Fortieth birthday. Big one."

"Here?"

"Where else? Marcus is coming. Renee too, obviously."

Obviously.

"Derek, I'm exhausted. Sofie's still not sleeping through the night, Kyle's—"

"Maren. It's my fortieth."

I looked at him — the fresh haircut he hadn't mentioned getting, the phone he now kept face-down on every surface, the flowers he used to bring for absolutely no reason and hadn't in over a year.

"Fine," I said. "We'll have a party."

Standing there in a stained top with baby spit-up drying on my collarbone, I made a quiet decision. Whatever it took, I was going to walk out to that pool looking like the woman I used to be, even if just for one afternoon.

Four a.m. came fast on Saturday. I stood in the kitchen icing cupcakes with a piping bag in one hand and a bottle warmer beeping in the other while Sofie dozed in her bouncer at my feet. Derek slept upstairs through all of it.

By nine, I'd strung lights across the patio, wrestled an inflatable palm tree into shape, dressed Kyle in tiny swim trunks, and taped a "Happy 40th" banner over the fence. Derek wandered down an hour later, yawning, and surveyed my work.

"Wow, place looks decent," he said. "You didn't overdo the cheesy stuff, right?"

"Just the right amount of cheesy."

Guests started arriving around noon. Marcus came in carrying a cooler on his shoulder, Renee behind him with a huge platter of cut fruit. She spotted me and rushed over for a hug before I'd even said hello.

"Maren, sit down, I mean it," she whispered. "Give me that baby. Go eat something that isn't a Goldfish cracker."

I laughed, caught off guard. "You sure?"

"Give me that baby," she repeated, already lifting Sofie out of my arms.

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I stood in the kitchen eating a deviled egg like a raccoon that had broken into somebody's cooler.

Around two, I finally went upstairs, dug the one swimsuit that still fit out of the bottom drawer, and stared at myself in the mirror for a long time before pulling it on. I told myself I looked fine. I had grown two entire humans inside this body. I walked out to the pool with my chin up.