Chapter 13 - the baby shower nearly broke me for a different reason
The first large family gathering after the attack was my baby shower.
I nearly canceled it.
By then I could walk without limping, but I still flinched at sudden movement behind me, and loud noises made my body tense before my mind caught up. Ethan said we could scrap the whole thing without explanation. Margaret said she’d support whatever I wanted. But a week before the date, I found myself looking at the invitations and realizing I did not want Chloe’s violence to become the organizing principle of my child’s arrival.
So we kept it.
It was held inside, with tighter security than any baby shower in history and enough women bearing casseroles and opinions to populate a small town. Margaret oversaw the food like a field commander. Ethan pretended he was only dropping in briefly, then spent half the afternoon hovering near the doorway like an armed doorman in a navy suit.
At one point I stepped onto the back terrace for air and found Margaret there alone. She handed me a glass of sparkling water and said, “You’re doing better than I did when I was carrying Ethan. I would’ve burned the whole garden down by now.”
I laughed, then unexpectedly started crying.
Not from fear. From release.
She put one hand on my shoulder and let me cry without making it sentimental. “Listen to me,” she said after a minute. “Chloe wanted you to feel hunted in your own life. Don’t give her that.”
That line stayed with me.
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Inside, women were arguing over cake flavors and whether the nursery needed blackout drapes. In the driveway, North Shore’s discreet vehicle sat where I knew Ethan had positioned it. Somewhere between those two facts—ordinary celebration and earned vigilance—I understood that healing wasn’t about forgetting what happened in the garden.
It was about refusing to let that afternoon define the shape of everything that came after.
