“Dana, wait. He’s going to be furious,” I whispered.
“Good.”
“He’ll blame me.”
My MIL turned onto the landing and looked me dead in the eye.
“Emma. Listen to me. You’ve done nothing wrong. Do you hear me? Nothing. You’re growing a whole human being in a body that hurts. In a car. In a parking lot. In this August heat.”
I nodded, but my chin wobbled.
“He’ll blame me.”
“Tonight,” Dana said more softly, “you’re going to stand behind me. You’re going to let me talk. And then you’re going to sleep in your own bed. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She squeezed my hand and started climbing again.
When we reached my door, Dana straightened her bathrobe, shifted the package under her arm, and knocked three sharp times.
It took a few minutes, then I heard Ryan’s footsteps stumbling toward the door.
“You’re going to stand behind me.”
My husband opened the door with a sleepy grin, but his smile disappeared when he saw his mother standing beside me.
“Mom?”
Dana held out the package. “A little surprise.”
He carried the package inside, and we followed. Then he tore off the brown paper and gasped, his smile vanishing. The package contained a folded camping cot with a carrying strap.
His smile disappeared.
Ryan dropped the folding cot on the floor and stumbled back a step. He laughed. She didn’t.
“Mom, what the hell?”
“From tonight, you sleep on this in the hallway. Emma takes the bed,” my MIL said with finality.
“You can’t do this!”
“Oh, I can,” she said, as calm as Sunday morning. “Tell your wife who really pays the rent, Ryan.”
His face turned pale. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“You can’t do this!”
Dana turned to me, her expression gentle.
“Every month for two years, honey, I’ve wired the money that covers most of this apartment’s rent. Ryan’s paycheck never stretches that far. He just never told you.”
I felt the floor tilt a little, but in a good way.
“You can’t be serious,” my husband said.
“The second she sleeps in that car again, the transfers stop,” Dana said. “Try paying the rent on your own next month. See how it fits.”
“He just never told you.”
Ryan initially responded by trying to charm his mother.
“Come on, Mom, you know you don’t want to do that. You’re a good parent, not like others.”
But when that didn’t work, he turned to anger.
“You can’t just order me around in my own place!”
When that failed, he slipped into that wobbly, guilty voice I knew too well.
“You’re a good parent.”
Dana just hummed and unfolded the cot in the hallway as if she’d done it a hundred times before.
“Sheets are in the SUV, sweetheart. I’ll grab them.”
I walked past Ryan, still holding my pregnancy pillow, and climbed into our bed. Our real bed. My back sank into the mattress as if it had been waiting for me.
“I’ll grab them.”
