I heard my own voice as if it belonged to another man.
“What is this?”
She dropped her gaze. “Please don’t get upset.”
My hands started shaking. “Claire. What is this?”
She opened her mouth, closed it, then said in a whisper, “It’s lunch.”
I felt the floor tilt beneath me.
“Lunch?” I repeated. “This is lunch?”
She gave the smallest nod.
There are moments in life when anger does not arrive as heat. It arrives as cold. Clean, surgical, devastating. My whole body went icy.
“I send thirty thousand dollars a month into this house,” I said, each word slower than the last. “There is food in every cabinet. There is more food in our refrigerator than some families buy in a month. Why are you eating this?”
Claire covered her face with both hands.
“Because that’s what your mother said I’m allowed to have.”
The room became a tunnel.
I lowered the bowl onto the counter because suddenly I was afraid I might throw it hard enough to break something.
“What did you say?”
Her voice trembled. “She said after a C-section I shouldn’t eat rich food. She said too much protein and dairy would make my milk heavy and upset the baby’s stomach. She said I needed to be disciplined or I’d get lazy and fat and never recover.”
I stared at her.
Words moved through my mind without connecting.
“She gives me broth sometimes,” Claire continued. “Mostly after she sends you pictures. Or if she knows you’re coming home early. But most days she says the good food should be saved for you because you work, and for her because she’s the one taking care of the house. She says women in recovery shouldn’t expect luxury.”
My mouth went dry.
“How long?”
Claire did not answer.
“How long, Claire?”
Her shoulders folded inward.
“Since we came home from the hospital.”
I leaned one hand against the counter because the kitchen suddenly felt very far away.
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