Never in front of Rhys. That is the thing people do not understand about women like my mother-in-law. It is always in a kitchen, or in a car, or with a hand over yours at a table.
At a Christmas: “Some women are simply more suited to it than others.”
At his father’s birthday: “Rhys always wanted children. It must be very hard for him.”
“It’s hard for both of us.”
“Of course, Noor. That’s what I said.”
And once, in her conservatory, while he was outside on a call:
“Have you ever thought that holding on to him might be a bit selfish?”
When we finally told them I was expecting, she screamed down the phone so loudly I had to hold it away from my head.
And then she took the whole thing over. The decorations. The photographer. A guest list with eleven people on it I had never met.
At a Sunday dinner in the March she put her hand flat on my stomach without asking anybody and said, “I want a boy. This family needs an heir.”
Rhys’s sister Fern looked up. “It’s not a monarchy, Mum.”
“It’s the bloodline.”
On the morning of the party I stood in front of the mirror in a white dress and made my husband promise me one thing.
That if his mother started turning it into something about her, he would stop it.
Thirty people in our garden. Two cameras. Yolande in pale blue.
We got to the countdown and Rhys took my hand, and I had the cannon in my other one.
And she came across that lawn and took it out of my hand.
