“Look at this,” he said. “You’ve completely lost control.”
I looked at the wreckage.
For once, I did not rush to clean it.
Cynthia stood several feet away in her sauce-covered dress, her hands held stiffly at her sides.
She looked furious, but beneath the anger was something closer to alarm.
She had spent years teaching Ivan that a wife’s duty was to absorb whatever her husband gave her.
Now she was watching the result of that lesson collapse across the patio.
“You need to apologize,” she said.
I turned toward her.
“For what?”
Her mouth opened, but no answer came immediately.
“For ruining the party,” she said at last.
A woman beside her stared in disbelief.
“He burned her hand,” the woman said.
Cynthia’s face tightened.
“It was an accident.”
“No,” I said.
The word came out calmly.
That calm frightened Ivan more than my scream had.
