Chapter 2 - Beneath the Pastel Banners
The suburban backyard of my parents’ home in Crestview looked like a theatrical stage set designed by someone who understood the price of things but not their value.
Arching over the manicured grass was an enormous installation of three thousand pastel balloons—peach, cream, and dusty rose—tethered with metallic gold wire that hissed in the afternoon breeze. Near the flagstone patio, two tables groaned under the weight of three-tiered almond-raspberry cakes, silver platters of artisanal macarons, and crystal flutes filled with non-alcoholic pink spritzers.
Olivia sat on a throne of woven wicker draped in sheepskin, wearing a white silk dress that pooled around her ankles. She looked radiant, porcelain, and completely unbothered by the fact that the caterer hovering near the garage had spent the last twenty minutes checking his clipboard with a white-knuckled grip.
She was thirty-two weeks along, her stomach a neat, high curve.
"Clara!" my mother’s voice rang across the lawn, sharp enough to cut glass.
Eleanor emerged from the glass sliding doors of the kitchen, carrying a fresh bowl of iced strawberries. She was sixty-one, with dyed ash-blonde hair cut into a severe, expensive bob, wearing an ivory linen pantsuit that signaled money even when the bank accounts beneath it were overdrawn by five figures.
Her eyes swept over me—not to my face, not to my eyes to ask how my sleepless nights were going, but straight down to my stomach, then to my shoes, then to my purse.
"You’re late," Eleanor said, not kissing my cheek, merely setting the strawberries down with a ceramic *thud*. "And you wore flats. Honestly, Clara, a wedge wouldn't kill you. You look like you’re going to the grocery store."
"My ankles are swollen, Mom," I said, keeping my voice level, schooling my face into the bland neutrality I had perfected over a decade. "The doctor told me to stay off my feet."
"Olivia’s ankles are swollen too," Eleanor countered instantly, her voice rising just enough to draw the attention of my aunt Janice and two cousins standing by the mimosa bar. "And she managed to put on an espadrille. It’s called making an effort for an occasion."
"Happy shower, Olivia," I said, stepping past our mother toward the wicker chair.
Olivia looked up from her phone, her manicured nails tapping the glass screen. She offered a languid, theatrical sigh and tilted her face up for an air-kiss. "You made it. I thought Marcus would forbid you from coming. He’s so... controlling about your schedule lately."
"Marcus is working," I replied. "And he cares about my health."
"Well, some of us have husbands who have to work on weekends too," she murmured, though her husband, Greg, was currently asleep in the upstairs guest room after an all-night poker game, completely detached from the debts piling up on their kitchen counter.
Across the lawn, my father, Arthur, stood near the stainless-steel outdoor kitchen, a tumbler of Scotch in his hand despite it being barely two in the afternoon. He was a tall, stooped man whose former authority as a regional sales manager had long since curdled into bitter, passive complicity. He caught my eye, didn't smile, and raised his glass half an inch before turning back to adjust the flame on an empty grill.
I moved toward the shade of the cedar pergola, feeling the oppressive July heat pressing down on the back of my neck. My daughter kicked hard beneath my ribs, a sharp, twisting sensation that made me gasp and place both hands flat against my linen dress.
"Having pains already?"
Eleanor had materialized at my side. She didn't sound concerned; she sounded calculating. Her fingers clamped onto my elbow—not a gentle touch, but a pincer grip, her manicured nails digging through the fabric into my muscle.
"Just kicking," I said, trying to step back.
Her grip tightened, steering me away from the pergola, away from Aunt Janice, toward the edge of the deep end of the swimming pool where the water lapped against blue tiles with a rhythmic, indifferent slap.
"We need to talk before the gifts," Eleanor said in a low, venomous whisper.
"Mom, I don't want to talk business today. It’s Olivia’s party."
"It *is* Olivia’s party. Which is why it’s obscene that you’re standing here holding onto eighteen thousand dollars while your sister’s life is falling apart."
The air left my chest. Marcus had been right. The number was out.
"Where did you get that number?" I demanded, my voice trembling despite my best efforts.
"Arthur saw your credit union statement on your dining table when he dropped off the lawnmower last week," Eleanor hissed, stepping closer, crowding my personal space until the smell of her lavender perfume and gin-scented breath filled my lungs. "Eighteen thousand, two hundred dollars. Just sitting there. In a liquid checking account."
"It’s a high-yield savings account for our hospital deductible and my maternity leave," I said, planting my feet on the wet concrete apron of the pool. "It’s not sitting there. It’s spoken for."
"Spoken for?" Eleanor’s face flushed a dark, mottled crimson. "Olivia has a bailiff coming to her house on Tuesday for the lease breach on the storefront! If she doesn't satisfy the arrears, they’re going to freeze Greg’s wages! She has an infant coming into this world in six weeks, Clara! How can you stand there with your stomach out, pretending to be a saint, while your flesh and blood is facing eviction?"
"She isn't facing eviction from her home," I said, my voice hardening. "She’s being sued for an commercial lease she signed without reading the termination clause! A business she abandoned three months ago because she got bored!"
Olivia’s voice drifted across the patio, perfectly pitched to sound wounded, defenseless, and tragic.
"Mom? Is Clara yelling at you?"
The backyard fell into an unnatural, vacuum-like silence. The clinking of ice against glass stopped. The soft bossa nova music playing from the outdoor speakers suddenly seemed loud, grotesque.
Eleanor didn't let go of my arm. She pulled me two inches closer to the pool’s coping stones. Her eyes were wide, unblinking, filled with the terrifying, self-righteous rage of a matriarch whose authority had never been openly defied.
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"Give Olivia the money," Mom ordered, her voice no longer a whisper, but a clear, carrying proclamation that sliced through the warm afternoon air. "She deserves to be a mother more than you do."
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