He licked my cheek.
Greg looked disgusted.
“This is insane.”
Rachel ignored him.
She looked at the device.
“Put that somewhere safe.”
I slipped it into the zippered pocket of my diaper bag.
Greg saw.
“Sarah.”
“No.”
“You’re not taking that anywhere.”
“Why?”
He stopped.
Again.
Every time I asked why, he reached the edge of whatever lie he had prepared.
Rachel noticed too.
She looked at Barbara.
“Do you know what it is?”
Barbara’s face tightened.
“I know that my grandson’s birthday is being destroyed over a dog and a cheap piece of plastic.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Barbara lifted her chin.
“You’re not interrogating me in my son’s house.”
Rachel looked around.
“This house is Sarah’s too.”
“It belongs to both of them.”
Barbara replied.
“But Greg pays most of the mortgage.”
I felt something cold move through me.
That had nothing to do with the recorder.
But the ease with which she said it mattered.
For months, Greg had increasingly referred to the house as his.
His kitchen.
His garage.
His money.
His rules.
I had reduced my work schedule after Leo was born.
I still worked twenty-five hours a week as a freelance medical copy editor.
I also handled nearly all childcare, appointments, groceries, meals, laundry, cleaning, and household scheduling.
Greg’s salary paid more of the mortgage.
Apparently that had become ownership.
Rachel looked at me.
“Get Leo.”
“What?”
“Get Leo.”
Greg stepped forward.
“Nobody is taking my son anywhere.”
The sentence made my stomach drop.
Not because he said our son.
Because he said my son.
Rachel heard it too.
She kept her voice calm.
“Sarah can leave the house with Leo.”
“This is ridiculous.”
Greg said.
“You’re all overreacting.”
“Then you should be thrilled to have some space.”
Rachel replied.
I looked at the kitchen.
At the destroyed cake.
At the half-inflated balloons.
At the stack of Paw Patrol plates.
At the banner I had hung after midnight because I wanted Leo to wake up to something colorful.
I had spent six weeks planning this birthday.
Not because a two-year-old would remember it.
Because I wanted photographs.
Because his first birthday happened during a winter storm when half the family could not come.
Because parenthood made me sentimental about ridiculous things.
Because I loved him.
I realized I was still thinking about the party.
That was how trained I had become.
My husband had shoved me.
A recording device had been found hidden inside my son’s cake.
Greg clearly knew something about it.
And part of my brain was still asking whether I had enough cupcakes if we canceled the cake.
“Sarah.”
Rachel said softly.
That brought me back.
I picked up Leo.
Grabbed the diaper bag.
Max followed.
Greg stood near the hallway.
“You leave with my son and that dog, don’t bother coming back tonight.”
I stopped.
Rachel whispered:
“Don’t answer.”
But I did.
“Okay.”
Something flickered across Greg’s face.
He had expected me to argue.
I think he had expected me to beg.
Instead, I walked out.
I drove behind Rachel to her house.
Max rode in the back seat beside Leo’s car seat.
Every few minutes, Leo reached through the gap and touched Max’s fur.
“Max.”
He said.
“Cake.”
Under any other circumstances, I might have laughed.
Instead, I cried so hard at the first red light that Rachel called me from her car.
“Pull over.”
“I’m okay.”
“No.”
“You can’t see the road.”