Chapter 4 - The Toast
Everyone who could swim was already in the water. Marcus stood in the shallow end next to Derek, holding a beer he wasn't drinking. Renee sat on a lounger with Sofie asleep against her chest.
I stepped toward the pool, and that's when Derek burst out laughing. Loud. Ugly. Marcus laughed along for a second before he caught sight of my face and looked away fast, staring down into the water like he wished he could disappear into it.
"What's so funny?" I asked.
Derek wiped his eyes, still grinning.
"Sorry, sorry, I couldn't help it. Renee was just swimming, and — come on. She obviously looks a lot more attractive in a swimsuit than you do."
The patio went dead silent. Somewhere behind me, a fork clinked against a plate and stopped.
Renee's face turned to stone.
It hurt more than I expected it to, but I didn't say a single word. I just thought, very clearly: I'm done.
I turned around, walked back through the house, up the stairs, and shut the bedroom door. I sat on the edge of the bed with both hands pressed over my mouth.
A soft knock came seconds later. Renee slipped in and closed the door behind her.
"Maren," she said quietly. "I have to tell you something. I've been sick over it for weeks."
"Renee, please, I really can't right now."
"You can. And you need to."
She sat beside me and pulled out her phone.
"Derek has been texting me for weeks," she said. "Photos of himself. Asking me to meet him for coffee. Telling me his marriage is 'basically over.' I never once replied. I saved every message. I just told Marcus, right before you came out to the pool."
The room seemed to tilt sideways.
"What?"
"That's why I've been coming around so much, checking on you. I wanted to tell you the right way — not in front of everyone. But I didn't want to be the woman who blew your whole life apart either."
She handed me the phone. I scrolled and scrolled, and every strange, small thing from the past few months rearranged itself into a shape that finally made sense — the cologne before family lunches, the three separate offers to drive Renee home, the phone screen always angled away, his mouth constantly full of "Renee, Renee, Renee," like he was auditioning her right in front of me.
It was never about my body. It never had been. He had been quietly building a story where he got to walk away and point at my postpartum body as the reason, where I got to play the villain in my own exhaustion.
I looked up at her. "You told Marcus?"
"Yes. He's with us on this."
I laughed once, sharp, with no humor in it at all.
"My husband compared a thirty-five-year-old woman to me at his own birthday party."
Renee didn't say anything else. I wiped my face with the back of my hand, stood, and looked at myself in the mirror.
"Can I borrow your phone for one more minute?"
"Of course," she said.
I walked back downstairs. Guests were still in the pool, pretending very hard that they hadn't heard a thing. I picked up the microphone from the speaker stand and tapped it twice. The chatter died instantly.
"Everyone, I'd like to make a toast for my husband's birthday," I said. "So listen carefully."
Glasses lifted around the yard. Derek smiled, clearly expecting to be praised.
"For months now, my husband has been generous enough to tell me I've gained weight. That I should try to look more like Renee. That Renee, and I quote, is 'the definition of beautiful.'"
A few nervous laughs rippled through the crowd.
"And tonight, at his own party, he announced to everyone that Renee clearly looks better in a swimsuit than his own wife does. So now I finally understand exactly why he's been so focused on her."
I raised Renee's phone and read two short lines out loud — the photo he'd sent, and the message where he told her his marriage was "basically over." The backyard went completely silent. Somewhere a pool filter hummed, absurdly loud in the quiet.
"My sister-in-law never once responded to him. She saved every message and told her husband before she told me. So I want to publicly thank her for having more loyalty toward me than my own husband ever did."
Marcus set his beer down on the patio table, walked across the yard, and stood beside Renee and me without saying a single word.
"Happy fortieth, Derek," I said, looking straight at him. "I hope you find whatever it is you've actually been looking for. It's not going to be at this address anymore."
Derek's face went from white to a deep, blotchy red in front of every single person he'd invited to celebrate him.
Kyle tugged at the hem of my swimsuit, tiny and completely unbothered by the chaos around him.
"Mommy, is the party over? I want cake."
I laughed — a real laugh, the first one in weeks — and cut him the first slice.
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Weeks later, I caught my reflection in the hallway mirror. Red dress, lipstick, Sofie on my hip, Kyle tugging on his shoes for our Saturday walk with Renee. I stood there for a second, just looking.
The woman in that mirror had never been the problem. She never would be.
