The beige makeup on the cosmetic sponge was three shades too light for my jawline, but the small mirror over the guest bathroom sink did not show the difference unless I leaned close to the bulb. I dabbed the thick foundation over the left side of my chin, pressing until the dull ache flared behind my teeth. It was my thirty-second birthday, and I wanted the morning to be quiet.
Derek was sitting at the pine table in the kitchen, his eyes fixed on the crust of the bread I had baked the night before. He was thirty-four, and when he was quiet like this, he looked exactly like the man I had married three years ago in the Presbyterian church.
“It is heavy,” he said, not looking up from his plate. “A loaf of bread should not feel like a brick, Emily.”
“I think I left it in the oven five minutes too long,” I said, my voice trailing off.
I pulled the sleeves of my yellow knit sweater down, stretching the wool until the cuffs covered my wrists completely. The skin there was still tender from Tuesday, but the long sleeves kept the dark marks out of sight. I believed that if I just kept the kitchen quiet enough, the anger would finally pass out of him for good and we would go back to the way we were in the spring. He had been under so much pressure at the office, and I knew he was capable of being the gentle man I loved.
“Your mother is coming in ten minutes,” Derek said, setting his mug down with a hard, sharp click against the wood.
The sound made me freeze for a second before I went back to dabbing the makeup. I knew how to blend it now, feathering the edges into my neck so the yellowing margins of the skin would disappear under the cream.
“She is bringing a pie,” I said, trying to keep my voice light.
“She does not know how to bake either,” Derek said, his voice a smooth, mocking drawl. “It runs in the family.”
I did not answer him, focusing instead on the way the light hit my cheek in the mirror.
The driveway outside gravel-crunched as a car pulled in, and I knew it was Linda arriving early. I put the little jar of foundation back into the drawer, sliding it behind the extra soap where Derek would not notice it.
Linda came through the back doorway without knocking, carrying a cardboard box that was taped shut on all four sides. She set it on the kitchen counter and immediately adjusted the thin gold necklace around her throat, her fingers twitching against the metal.
“I brought a pear tart from the market,” Linda said, her words running together in a quick, bright stream. “It is a bit dry, but the man at the counter said it was fresh this morning.”
“Thank you, Linda,” I said, keeping my head tilted toward the stove.
She did not look at my face, keeping her eyes strictly on the yellow kettle on the burner. Her hands stayed near her collar, adjusting the clasp of her necklace over and over while she talked about the heavy traffic near the municipal courthouse.
“We must keep things pleasant today,” Linda whispered, her voice dropping as Derek walked toward the pantry. “You know how he gets when the house feels cluttered, Emily.”
“I cleaned the hallway,” I said, pulling at my left cuff again.
“Just make sure there is no fuss,” she said, her fingers snapping back to her gold chain. “A good marriage requires a little silence now and then.”
She knew, of course, but we had an unspoken agreement that some things were simply never mentioned in this kitchen. Her own husband had possessed a quick temper, and Linda had spent thirty years pretending the walls of her home were soundproof.
“The kitchen looks fine,” Derek said, returning with a fresh bowl of sugar. “As long as Emily does not try to serve that bread.”
Linda laughed, a high, nervous sound that ended too quickly. “Oh, Derek, she tries her best. We all have our off days.”
“Her best is five minutes too long in the oven,” Derek said, sitting back down and tapping his spoon against the rim of his mug.
I kept my back to them, adjusting the burner under the kettle even though the water had not started to warm.
The sound of a heavy engine idling came from the street, and I looked through the small window above the sink. My father’s gray Buick, the one with one hundred ninety thousand miles on the odometer, was sitting by the curb.
My father, Richard, walked up the porch steps with a slow, deliberate pace that I could recognize from a mile away. He was sixty-one, and he carried himself with the heavy, quiet dignity of a man who spent his life working with his hands in his garage.
He was holding a white bakery box, tied with a blue string, containing the twelve-dollar strawberry shortcake he bought for my birthday every year. The box had the name of the bakery on the lid, stamped in faded blue ink, and he had carried it carefully so the cream would not slide against the cardboard.
He stopped in the middle of the kitchen, his heavy boots coming to a halt on the linoleum.
He did not look at Derek or Linda first. His eyes locked directly onto my chin, where the heavy foundation had begun to cake under the warm lights.
“Happy birthday, Emily,” my father said, his voice low and deliberate.
“Thank you, Dad,” I said, stepping back into the shadow of the refrigerator.
My father did not move, his eyes tracking the way I held my hands close to my chest, my fingers buried deep in the yellow wool of my sweater cuffs. He had noticed the bruises on my wrists during his visit three weeks ago, though I had lied and told him I caught them on the heavy garden gate while weeding. I thought I had successfully hidden them, but he had stayed quiet, his eyes lingering on my sleeves.
“You look pale,” my father said, his voice dropping an octave.
“It is just the morning light,” I said, my voice trailing off.
Linda adjusted her gold necklace, her fingers moving in rapid, jerky circles. “Richard, look at the beautiful shortcake you brought. Let me get some plates from the cupboard so we can all have a slice before it gets warm.”
“The blue paper plates are in the pantry,” I said, pointing toward the wooden door.
My father did not look at Linda. He stood in the center of our kitchen, his face completely blank, his gaze remaining on the side of my face where the makeup was thickest.
“Put the cake on the counter, Richard,” Derek said, his voice carrying that familiar, easy warmth he used when neighbors were nearby. “Emily has been waiting for it all morning.”
My father slowly set the white bakery box down on the formica counter, right next to the dry pear tart Linda had brought.
He reached down to his left wrist, where his old silver watch sat on its worn leather strap. The watch was valued at one hundred fifty dollars, a gift from his own father forty years ago, and the gold clasp on the strap had been loose for as long as I could remember. It was a simple piece of jewelry, but it was the only valuable thing he owned, and he treated it with a quiet sort of reverence. Whenever he was thinking deeply, he would wind it with two fingers, but today he did not wind it.
He slowly unclasped the band, the metal clicking softly as he laid the silver watch flat on the counter next to the cake.
“I brought the shortcake you like,” my father said, his low voice filling the quiet room, “but we have to talk about what is on your face.”
The silence in the kitchen became very cold.
“Richard, please,” Linda said, her voice rising an octave as she took a step toward the sink. “It is her birthday. We are having a nice morning, and we don’t need any drama.”
“Emily,” my father said, ignoring his mother-in-law entirely. “Who did that to you?”
I pulled my sweater cuffs down until they hurt my thumbs, desperately trying to cover the faint purple shadow of a thumbprint on my left wrist. I thought of the eight thousand dollars in my personal savings account, the money I had kept separate just in case we ever needed a fresh start, though I knew we wouldn’t. I believed that as long as I had that money and my husband’s promise to do better, we could find our way back to a peaceful life.
“Dad, it was just an accident in the garage,” I said. “I was moving some of the old flower pots on the shelf.”
Derek rolled his shoulders backward, his smooth, mocking drawl cutting through the room before I could finish my lie.
He let out a short, dry laugh, leaning his hip against the edge of the kitchen table and looking my father straight in the eyes.
“She had a little slip on the cellar stairs, Richard,” Derek said, his voice casual. “You know how clumsy she gets when she is rushing to get things done.”
My father did not blink. He did not look at the cake, or the pie, or the dry bread on the table.
“I asked who did it,” my father said, his voice dropping even lower, vibrating in the floorboards.
“And I told you,” Derek said, his smile widening just a fraction as he took a step forward. “She fell. But if you want to make a big deal out of a little grease paint, that is on you.”
Linda adjusted her gold necklace so hard the chain left a red mark on her skin. “We should just cut the cake. Derek, tell him about the garden plans for the spring.”
My father did not look at her, nor did he look at me. He kept his eyes fixed entirely on Derek, his hands moving slowly down to the cuffs of his flannel shirt.
He began to roll his sleeves up, his movements steady and cold, while looking directly at Derek.
The master bathroom smelled of lavender soap and the damp towels Derek always left on the tile floor.
I stood in front of the vanity mirror and carefully pulled at the cuffs of my gray wool sweater, tugging them down until only my fingertips showed.
My wrists were tender where his grip had tightened the night before, the skin already turning a dark, plum color under the fluorescent lights.
If I stood back near the door, I could see the reflection of the hallway behind me.
The wood-framed mirror in the hall had a hairline fracture running from the top left corner down to the brass hanger, a thin silver zig-zag that divided the wall in two.
It had cracked three weeks ago when Derek slammed the front door too hard, though he told the neighbors the wind must have caught it.
I lifted my phone and took a quick, silent picture of that cracked glass, saving it to my camera roll.
Then I turned back to the bathroom vanity and pulled open the deep bottom drawer where I kept my hair dryer and spare soap.
Behind the stack of folded white hand towels sat a small, round plastic jar with a black lid.
I picked it up and held it under the light.
It was Professional Cover-Up Foundation, shade light-beige.