“You look beautiful tonight,” he said, squeezing my hand.
I was wearing a dress I had bought on clearance three months earlier. It was simple and navy blue. Standing in front of that mansion, I suddenly felt as though I were dressed in cardboard.
“Thank you,” I said anyway.
He kissed my cheek quickly, almost mechanically, like he was checking off another task.
Then he stepped out and walked straight toward Richard before I even had time to unbuckle May from her seat.
I convinced myself the discomfort twisting in my stomach was only nerves about looking underdressed. I had no idea our four-year-old was about to say something that would destroy everything.
Men in expensive suits stood around sipping whiskey. Women in designer gowns exchanged air kisses beside the pool. Daniel laughed harder than usual at Richard’s jokes.
Inside, the entire house smelled like money and lemon polish. Even the servers moved with a kind of effortless confidence that made me feel awkward by comparison.
One woman looked at my dress, then my shoes, and offered me a smile so thin it barely qualified. I picked up a glass of sparkling water from a tray simply to give my hands something to hold.
Across the room, Daniel was already nodding eagerly at Richard, his face lit with that polished expression he always wore at work events. That was when I realized he wasn’t nervous tonight. He was invested in the performance.
Most of the evening was spent making sure May didn’t spill juice on anything worth more than our rent.
At one point, I found her crouched beside the dessert table with frosting smeared across her fingers. I sighed, grabbed a napkin, and started wiping her hands clean.
That was when Richard walked past us with his wife.
Vanessa.
Tall, graceful, beautiful in a cold and polished way. The kind of woman who instantly made me aware of every cheap thing I had on.
May looked up at her immediately. Then she smiled and pointed.
“Mommy,” she said loudly, “that’s the lady who bites.”
I laughed automatically because the sentence made absolutely no sense.
But Richard stopped walking.
Slowly, he turned around and looked directly at May.
“What do you mean by that, sweetheart?” he asked.
I laughed nervously.
“She’s four. She invents things.”
But Richard kept staring at her.
“The lady who bites?” he repeated. “May, tell me why you call her that.”
Every instinct in me wanted to shut the conversation down. But May smiled proudly and answered.
“She bites her ring when she takes Daddy’s phone,” May said.
The entire patio went silent.
Daniel’s smile disappeared. I turned toward him slowly.
“What phone?” I asked quietly.
May looked confused, as though all the adults were being slow.
“Daddy’s shiny phone. The one he keeps in his sock drawer. The pretty lady comes to our house when you take me to ballet. She sits on the couch and bites her ring and says, ‘Don’t worry, he’ll never know.’”
