Patricia decided this baby was a boy before I was even showing. She started calling the baby “the heir” when I was barely six weeks along. She sent Derek links to blue nursery themes and articles about how to conceive a son, as if my body were failing a series of tests.
Then she’d look at me and smile thinly.
“If you can’t give Derek what he needs,” she’d say, “maybe you should move aside for a woman who can.”
At dinner, Derek joined in.
“Fourth time’s the charm,” he joked once. “Don’t mess this one up.”
I set my fork down and said, “They’re our children. Not a science experiment.”
He rolled his eyes. “Relax. You’re so emotional. This house is basically a hormone bomb.”
Later that night, after the kids were asleep, I asked him directly.
“Can you tell your mom to stop?” I said. “She talks like our daughters are mistakes. They hear her.”
He shrugged. “Boys build the family. Every man needs a son. That’s just reality.”
I felt something cold slide through me.
“And what if this one’s a girl?” I asked.
He smirked. “Then we’ve got a problem, don’t we?”
From that point on, Patricia stopped hiding it in front of the children.
“Girls are cute,” she’d say loudly while the kids were in the room. “But they don’t carry the name. Boys build families.”
One night, after being tucked into bed, Mason whispered, “Mom, is Daddy mad we’re not boys?”
I swallowed my anger and wrapped my arms around her.
“Daddy loves you,” I said. “Being a girl is not something to be sorry for.”
The words felt thin, even to me.
The ultimatum came on an ordinary afternoon.
I was chopping vegetables. Derek sat at the table scrolling on his phone. Patricia wiped an already spotless counter, waiting.
She waited until the television in the living room was loud.
“If you don’t give my son a boy this time,” she said calmly, “you and your girls can crawl back to your parents. I won’t have Derek trapped in a house full of females.”
I turned off the stove and looked at Derek.
He didn’t look surprised.
“You’re okay with that?” I asked.
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