“Fertilizer.” Drew nodded once. “Your husband left his post-surgical wife on a basement-level floor with an infant to go buy grass food.”
Before I could answer, heavy footsteps padded across the ceiling overhead. A door clicked open. A toilet flushed through the exposed PVC pipes running along the laundry room ceiling, the sound rushing down right above our heads.
Moments later, soft footsteps descended the carpeted stairs.
“Eric?” Barbara’s voice drifted down the hall, thin and melodic with that Southern church-lady lilt that always made my stomach tighten. “Eric, honey, did you bring home those lemon drops from the pharmacy? My throat is just parched from the air conditioning.”
Drew shifted Clara into the crook of his left arm, reached out with his right hand, and shoved the laundry room door wide open. It slammed back against the drywall with a violent crack that echoed through the first floor.
Barbara was standing at the foot of the stairs, smoothing down the front of the periwinkle fleece robe Eric had bought me for my thirtieth birthday. Her silver hair was neatly brushed, her face flushed with the pink glow of a three-hour afternoon nap.
When she saw Drew standing in the laundry doorway holding the baby, her smile froze, her eyes darting past him to where I sat hunched over the step stool.
“Oh,” Barbara said, resting a manicured hand against her chest. “Drew. Goodness, you startled me. We weren’t expecting visitors today. Hannah’s been so fragile, you know. We’ve been trying to keep the house quiet so she can heal.”
Drew didn’t move an inch. He stood framed in the doorway like a mountain of stone.
“Take that robe off,” Drew said.
Barbara blinked, her polite mask twitching. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” Drew said, his voice deadly calm, slicing through the heavy stillness of the hallway. “Take my sister’s robe off your back right now. Go upstairs, pack your bags, and get out of this house before I call Elaine.”
Barbara’s posture stiffened immediately. The sweet, fragile grandmother act vanished, replaced by the brittle, defensive entitlement I had spent four days trying to survive.
“Now you listen to me, young man,” Barbara snapped, taking a step forward, her finger jabbing the air. “You do not speak to me that way in my son’s home. I came here out of the goodness of my heart to care for this family. I have raised three successful men, and I know what a postpartum mother needs better than some bachelor carpenter. Hannah insisted on the downstairs room. She wanted to be close to the nursery supplies. Eric and I have bent over backward to accommodate her moods, and if you think you can come barging in here—”
“I didn’t insist,” I cut in.
My voice wasn’t loud, but it had an edge that made Barbara stop mid-sentence.
I gripped the sink again, ignored the tearing sensation in my abdomen, and forced myself to stand. I leaned heavily against the frame of the door, standing side by side with my brother.
“I never asked for this room, Barbara,” I said, looking her directly in the eyes. “I cried when Eric brought that mattress in. I told him every single night that I couldn’t get up to feed my child. And you walked down those stairs every morning, took coffee from my kitchen, wore my clothes, and looked at me lying on the floor like I was a stray animal you were letting sleep out of the rain.”
“Hannah, that is an absolute fabrication!” Barbara gasped, her hand fluttering to her throat as if she were under physical assault. “Eric told me—”
“Eric is a coward,” Drew barked, cutting her off so violently she jumped. “And you are a monster. You’re seventy years old and you took a surgical patient’s bed while she slept next to a running dryer. Look at her!”
At that moment, the front door clicked open.
Eric stepped into the foyer carrying a forty-pound bag of Scotts Turf Builder slung over his shoulder. He took one look at Drew holding Clara, at me clinging to the laundry room frame, and at his mother clutching her chest, and the easy, competent smile he wore for the world instantly collapsed.
“What’s going on here?” Eric demanded, dropping the bag of fertilizer onto the entryway rug with a heavy, dusty thud. “Drew? What are you doing?”
Drew looked at Eric with an expression of pure, unadulterated disgust.
