Her getting into your head again.
You finally admitted she controls everything you do.
You finally said you wanted your own life.”
I remembered Grace on her couch, one hand on her belly.
Mom…
do you think you ever let me be myself?
Suddenly I understood why the question had sounded rehearsed.
Not because Grace didn’t mean it.
She had meant every word.
But someone had been using a real wound between us as leverage.
I had always been involved in her life.
Sometimes too involved.
I knew that.
I had opinions about the wedding, their house, the nursery, the way Grace worked too hard while pregnant.
I could be stubborn.
I could make advice sound like instructions.
Ezekiel had taken those weaknesses and turned them into a weapon.
Grace looked at me.
“I did tell him I needed space from you.”
The sentence hurt.
But I nodded.
“Then I should have given you space.
That didn’t give him the right to bury you while you were alive.”
Her mouth trembled.
Ezekiel pointed toward me.
“See? She always knows how to make herself the reasonable one.”
The nurse stepped between him and the wheelchair.
“Sir, you need to leave the patient area now.”
He didn’t move.
“I’m her husband.”
“And she has asked you to leave.”
Another staff member approached from the nurses’ station.
Ezekiel finally stepped backward, but his anger had replaced the performance of grief completely.
“Grace, if I walk out that door, don’t pretend you don’t know what comes next.”
Grace went still.
I felt her fingers tighten around mine.
“What comes next?” I asked.
“Stay out of it, Bernice.”
“No,” Grace said.
Her voice was stronger now.
“Tell her.”
Ezekiel stared at his wife.
Grace looked at me instead.
“I told him last week that after the baby was born, I wanted to stay with you for a while.”
I said nothing.
“I needed time,” she continued.
“I wasn’t sure about the marriage anymore.”
Ezekiel laughed once, without humor.
“There it is.”
Grace ignored him.
“We’d been fighting for months.
Every time I disagreed with him, he said it was because you had filled my head with something.
Every time I agreed with you about anything, he said it proved I couldn’t think for myself.”
The nurse quietly unlocked the wheels of Grace’s chair.
“We should return you to your room.”
Grace shook her head toward room 212.
