I was eight months pregnant, my ankles swollen to the size of grapefruits, my back throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache that signaled exhaustion. Yet, here I was, on my hands and knees, scrubbing a microscopic stain off the mahogany coffee table.
“Elena, you missed a spot,” my mother, Linda, said. She didn’t look up from her reflection in the hallway mirror. She was adjusting a diamond necklace that cost more than my husband, Marcus, supposedly made in a year. “Tonight is important. Victor’s partners are coming to the gala. Everything must be perfect.”
“I know, Mom,” I grunted, struggling to pull myself up. The baby kicked hard against my ribs, a protest I wished I could voice. “But I really need to sit down. My blood pressure was high at the last check-up.”
“High blood pressure,” my father, Robert, scoffed from his armchair. He rattled his newspaper aggressively. “In my day, women gave birth in the fields and went back to work. You’re just looking for an excuse to be lazy. Just like that husband of yours.”
I bit my lip, tasting iron. Marcus. They hated him because they thought he was a freelance graphic designer who struggled to pay rent. They didn’t know the truth. They didn’t know that the ‘freelance work’ he did was managing the Blackwood Group, a conglomerate that owned half the skyline of New York City. We had kept it a secret for two years. I wanted to believe that my family could love me without a price tag attached.
I was failing that test every single day.
The front door opened, and my sister, Clara, breezed in. She was the Golden Child. Blonde, slender, and radiating the arrogance of someone who had never heard the word ‘no.’ Her husband, Victor, trailed behind her, checking his watch.
“Oh, god,” Clara said, looking at me with undisguised disgust. “You look like a whale, El. Are you going to change before the pre-dinner drinks? You’re ruining the aesthetic.”
“I’m not coming to the dinner,” I said, my voice trembling slightly. “I’m just here to help Mom set up the house for the after-party, remember?”
