His eyes hardened.
He looked at Emily as if she had broken some sacred rule that existed only in his family’s house.
“You can’t be serious,” he said.
“I am.”
“After everything my mother has done?”
Emily almost asked what, exactly, Genesis had done besides expect and receive.
Instead, she took one slow breath.
“This is my home we’re talking about.”
Genesis gave a soft, wounded laugh.
“Your home? You’re married.”
Jackson leaned forward.
“Don’t talk to my mother like that.”
“I’m talking about my property.”
“Your property,” he repeated, and the words came out soaked in contempt.
That was when Emily understood the apartment had never been just an apartment to them.
It was proof she still had a door they could not lock from the outside.
It was proof she had options.
People who depend on your obedience hate your exits more than they hate your anger.
Genesis lowered her voice.
“Jackson, are you going to let her humiliate me like this?”
The table went still.
That sentence was not a question.
It was permission.
Jackson pushed his chair back so hard the legs scraped the hardwood.
“How dare you say no to my mother, you useless woman?”
The words struck first.
The plate came next.
Emily barely had time to turn her head.
The edge of the porcelain caught her near the left temple and shattered.
The room snapped into silence.
Hot sauce ran down her shoulder.
A piece of mushroom slid onto the tablecloth near her hand.
Someone gasped, but softly, like they were ashamed of having a human reaction.
The table froze around her.
Forks hung in the air.
A wineglass tilted in Jackson’s cousin’s hand without reaching his mouth.
Candle flames trembled beside the gravy boat.
The sauce dripped from the broken rim of the plate onto Genesis’s white linen, the one she saved for special occasions.
One aunt stared at the wallpaper instead of Emily’s face.
Nobody moved.
Emily braced herself on the table and stood.
Her knees felt wrong beneath her.
