Chapter 7 - The Baby Shower Nobody Was Allowed to Control
I refused a mansion baby shower.
Detliff wanted one.
Not because he cared about balloons.
Because he had forty-seven relatives who would interpret no invitation as a declaration of civil war.
“Then declare war,” I said.
He stared.
“You joke about things other people fear.”
“That is because your family is exhausting.”
We compromised.
A Sunday lunch at a small private room above an Italian restaurant.
Twenty people maximum.
No press.
No gifts over two hundred dollars.
Detliff argued about the gift limit for an hour.
“This stroller costs more than two hundred dollars.”
“Then buy it as the father.”
“What is the difference?”
“The difference is your aunt cannot arrive with a diamond rattle and make me resent a newborn.”
He stared.
“People make diamond rattles?”
“Your face tells me you are about to search.”
He put down his phone.
The lunch was almost normal.
My aunt Rosa came.
Wes came wearing a tie he hated.
Marco brought a stuffed bear the size of a refrigerator and claimed it cost one hundred ninety-nine dollars.
I did not believe him.
Detliff’s younger sister, Elena, arrived from Seattle.
She hugged me before I could prepare.
“Thank God.”
“For what?”
“My brother finally found somebody who tells him no.”
Detliff said, “I can hear you.”
“That’s part of the joy.”
For two hours, we ate pasta and argued about baby names.
Then the restaurant door opened.
A woman I had never seen entered.
She was around fifty, elegantly dressed, carrying no gift.
Detliff went still.
“Elise.”
Elena stopped smiling.
Marco stood.
The woman looked at me.
“So this is Nissa.”
I did not like being known by strangers anymore.
“Who are you?”
“Your child’s grandmother.”
Silence.
Detliff’s mother was supposed to be dead.
At least that was what I thought.
Then I remembered.
He had never told me she died.
He simply never spoke about her.
“Elise Stewart,” he said coldly.
She smiled.
“My son.”
He did not return it.
“What are you doing here?”
“I heard I’m becoming a grandmother.”
“How?”
“Vincent talked when he wanted money.”
Of course.
Detliff’s jaw tightened.
Elise sat without being invited.
“I left Chicago twelve years ago because your father’s world became impossible.”
Detliff’s voice went flat.
“You left two children.”
“Yes.”
Elena looked away.
The room had lost all warmth.
I said, “This is not the place.”
Elise looked at me.
“You are right.”
That surprised me.
She stood.
“I only wanted to see whether the woman carrying his child was another person who would worship his power.”
Detliff’s face darkened.
I answered before he could.
“No.”
Elise looked almost pleased.
“Good.”
Then she left.
I turned on Detliff.
“You never told me your mother was alive.”
“You never asked.”
The moment the words left him, he knew.
I stared.
He closed his eyes.
“That was bad.”
“Very.”
Elena muttered, “Historic.”
Detliff sat.
After lunch, he told me the truth.
Elise had walked away from the family after his father used her restaurant to hide money and endangered employees during a federal investigation.
She begged Detliff, then twenty-two, to come with her.
He refused.
Elena did go for a year, then returned.
Detliff called their mother a coward.
Elise called him his father’s son.
They had barely spoken since.
“Do you hate her?” I asked.
“I used to.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good answer.”
He smiled faintly.
The baby kicked.
Detliff placed his hand over the movement.
Only after I nodded.
That small pause mattered.
Then my phone rang.
Detective Walsh.
Vincent had made a deal.
He was offering testimony about Bellucci, Vane, and old Stewart operations.
In exchange, he wanted reduced charges.
Detliff looked at me.
“You’re angry.”
“Yes.”
“Because he gets less time?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“Because men keep negotiating consequences like everything is business.”
Detliff looked down at our daughter moving beneath his hand.
“For what it’s worth, I agree.”
That was when I realized he had changed more than I had allowed myself to notice.
Not enough to erase who he had been.
Enough to make the next choice possible.
After Elise left the baby shower, Elena stayed behind while Detliff argued with the restaurant over a bill they had already paid.
She sat beside me.
“You know he used to be worse.”
“That is not encouraging.”
She laughed.
“I mean before you. He thought caring about somebody meant removing every obstacle before they saw it.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It was.”
“Did your father teach him that?”
Elena’s smile faded.
“Our father taught him that people leave when you stop being useful.”
I looked across the room at Detliff.
He was listening to an elderly waiter explain why the gratuity had been calculated incorrectly instead of simply handing over money and ending the conversation.
Small thing.
Still.
Elena followed my gaze.
“You are not responsible for fixing what our father did to him.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
She touched my shoulder.
“Because he loves hard enough to make that mistake attractive.”
I looked at her.
“He has not said he loves me.”
Elena blinked.
Then smiled slowly.
“Oh.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I hate your family.”
“No, you don’t.”
I looked at Marco trying to fit the giant stuffed bear into an elevator.
“Some days I do.”
After the restaurant emptied, Detliff found me alone beside the window.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“About my mother?”
“No.”
He waited.
I looked at him.
“About the fact that everybody in your family knows how to enter a room like a threat.”
He laughed softly.
“Fair.”
Then I said, “Do not let what she did to you become an excuse for what you do to other people.”
His smile vanished.
“I know.”
“No. Hear me.”
He did.
“She left. That hurt you. But if you become controlling because you are terrified someone will leave again, then fear still runs the house.”
He looked out over the street.
For a long time he said nothing.
Then:
“I hate when you make sense.”
“I know.”
He reached for my hand and stopped.
May you like
I took his.
That was becoming our language.
