Page 28 of Iridescent
Hand in hand, we step forward into the light, leaving every heartbreak carefully out of sight.
Tonight, at least, we can pretend to be happy without restraint.
Chapter 6
Iam an alien among my own species, fluent in their language, trained in their customs, and still incapable of belonging.
They look like me, breathe like me, laugh like me—yet somehow, the rules they were born knowing remain foreign to me.
Tonight, those rules glitter beneath the chandeliers of the Navarros’ ballroom, embodied in jewel-toned gowns, diamond cuffs, and perfunctory smiles.
Waiters in white glide through the crowd with champagne and canapés. A string quartet plays near the terrace doors, nearly drowned out by the low hum of more than one hundred guests exchanging pleasantries and gossip in the same breath.
Women laugh with their hands resting over the soft swell of their stomachs. Men discuss markets, mergers, and legacy as if all three can be secured with the right signature. Children weave between the tables in miniature tuxedos and tulle dresses, their laughter bright enough to turn everyone tender.
Everyone except me.
I keep my spine straight, looking every inch like a woman made for this life.
The wife of the billionaire every camera hunts.
The wife everyone keeps appraising with polished curiosity, my empty womb reduced to a quarterly report they are all waiting to read.
I should’ve known from the moment Guinevere sounded pleased over the phone when Xavier told her we were coming that this was never going to be just dinner.
No. It was another way to remind me of my defect.
The dinner was supposed to be intimate by Navarro standards: family, a few donors, and select board members. Elise had mentioned there were usually no more than fifty people in attendance, so I still do not understand how the guest list managed to triple itself. Or why half the women here are pregnant, their rounded stomachs displayed beneath silk and satin as if they had been summoned for the sole purpose of standing in front of me.
It was only later, when Guinevere noticed our confusion, that she explained the change in that breathy, Marilyn Monroe voice of hers. The Sereno Group had recently funded a pediatric research wing at Saint Aurelia Children’s Hospital, and the family had decided to fold the announcement into the annual dinner.
A celebration of children. Of legacy. Of the kind of future my body keeps failing to give my husband.
The timing couldn’t have been more deliberate.
The furtive glances and murmured speculation began the moment my husband and I arrived. Some family members were less discreet, openly gawking at me, gesturing behind champagne flutes, and exchanging snickers too brazen for me to pretend they were accidental.
Their scrutiny has clung to my skin, prickling along my bare arms with every whispered judgment I pretend not to hear.
I draw in a measured breath and force my mind into a calmer lane. We are miles from home, but the performance remains the same.
Smile. Stand tall. Look radiant. Bleed quietly.
This room’s cruelty is one of the indignities I learned to endure in public. Almost civilized, compared to what strangers online think of me.
The internet christened me an empty vessel after the tabloids photographed me outside fertility clinics one too many times. The most vitriolic comments said I was so defective my body probably lost them before they ever had the chance to become babies.
I always find that laughable.
Because that would mean my body had given me a sign of life in the first place.
Amid the acrimony, there were kind comments too. Women defending me beneath photographs they never should have seen in the first place. Some offered pieces of themselves in the replies—miscarriages, failed cycles, hormones that made them unrecognizable, marriages buckling under the weight of hope.
Realizing how many of us were carrying different versions of the same grief undid me. Soon, I was crying for an entirely different reason.
My own pain receded for a breath while I prayed to whatever gods still listened to grant them solace.
Their words granted my defectiveness a temporary reprieve, but the callous voices always eclipsed the compassionate ones. Or maybe I am simply a masochist, considering I keep returning to those comments just to feel the wound reopen.
