“No, baby,” I said too quickly, voice too bright. “No. You didn’t.”
Maya stared at my mother as if she was trying to translate another language. Serena kept scrolling through her phone. My aunt chuckled—actually chuckled—and someone said, “Well, at least Christina is practical.”
Practical. Useful. Stable.
My mother took a sip of her drink and continued, calm and practiced, “We’re not doing another big wedding. It’s not necessary. You’re older. You already have a child, and honestly, you’re stable. You don’t need the help.”
Stable.
Like a cabinet you lean on. Like a shelf you load up until it bows and then slam shut and forget exists.
I rubbed Maya’s back with my thumb. She leaned into me like she was trying to make herself smaller, disappear into my side. She didn’t cry. She wasn’t the kind of kid who cried in public. She was the kind of kid who tried harder.
That’s what hurt most—watching her instinctively start to become like me.
I didn’t argue. I didn’t demand my mother apologize. I didn’t stand up and say, “What is wrong with you?” because no one at that table would have backed me up. They would have looked at me as if I’d ruined something beautiful and expensive with my emotions.
So I stayed still. I smiled like my face belonged to someone else. I let the brunch end without an explosion, because in my family, silence was a currency, and I had paid with it all my life.
