It wasn't loud. Marcus is never loud. It was the voice he uses when he finds something wrong under the hood of a car, a cracked belt or a leak, something that isn't going to fix itself. Flat and careful and certain. He wasn't asking because he didn't know. He wanted her to hear it said out loud, by somebody.
"Marcus," my mother said.
"I asked you a question."
"It's a dress."
"It's six months," Marcus said.
Nobody said anything after that. My mother put her mug down on the end table, finally, very carefully, on the coaster, the way you'd put down something that might go off. Marcus looked down at Hadley. He didn't take the shears from her. He held out his hand, palm up, the way he'd hold it out to a dog he didn't know, and waited.
Hadley looked at his hand. Her chin was shaking. She put the shears in it, handles first, the way we'd been taught to pass scissors in kindergarten, and I remember thinking how strange that was, that she remembered to do it the safe way.
"She deserved it," Hadley said, to his hand.
"Go to your room," Marcus said.
"Dad —"
"I'm not going to talk to you right now. I'm going to talk to you later. Go to your room."