3 - THE WEIGHT OF DECEPTION #3
They went to bed at ten. Joey fell asleep quickly, his arm draped across her waist, his breath warm against her shoulder.
Victoria lay awake, staring at the ceiling fan—the same ceiling fan she'd stared at after the first night on the couch, when Brock's seed had been drying inside her and hope had been a fragile, trembling thing.
Seven and a half weeks later, and she was pregnant. The hope had become a reality. The reality had become a nightmare.
No. Not a nightmare. That was the problem.
The affair with Brock was the best thing that had happened to her in years.
The sex. The connection. The way he looked at her like she was something precious instead of something broken.
The way his child was growing inside her, fulfilling the dream that Joey's body couldn't.
She didn't want it to end.
And that, she realized with a cold clarity, was the most terrifying part of all.
—
Three days later, Victoria sat on the front porch in the early evening, watching the sun sink behind the Appalachians.
A glass of lemonade sweated in her hand.
The porch swing creaked beneath her weight.
The air smelled like cut grass and the faint chemical tang of the coal processing plant ten miles away.
She'd spent the afternoon in Beckley's small downtown, browsing a baby boutique that had opened last spring.
She'd touched tiny onesies, run her fingers over a crib blanket so soft it felt like clouds, and imagined a nursery that didn't exist.
The saleswoman had asked when she was due.
Victoria had said March, and the word had felt like a promise.
Joey came out the screen door with two beers. He handed one to her before remembering. "Oh. Shit. Sorry."
"It's okay."
"I'll get you another lemonade."
"I'm fine. Sit."
He sat beside her on the swing. The chains groaned.
He'd changed out of his work clothes into a faded t-shirt and basketball shorts, his brown hair still damp from a shower.
The glasses were the same ones he'd worn since college—she'd told him to get new frames a dozen times, but he never did. Joey didn't like change. Never had.
"Beautiful evening," he said.
"Yeah."
"Reminds me of when we first started dating. Remember? That summer we drove down to the New River Gorge?"
Victoria smiled. It was a real smile, or as real as any of her smiles were these days. "You were scared to jump off that cliff by the waterfall."
"But I did. To impress you."
“I was impressed.”
He laughed. The sound was easy, unguarded—the laugh of a man who thought his biggest problem was behind him. "I was so scared you'd think I was a coward."
“You didn’t have to prove anything to me.”
"But I wanted to. Because I liked you." He reached over and took her hand. His palm was warm, slightly damp from the beer bottle. "I still do. I like you more than anyone, Victoria. You know that, right?"
"I know."
"So I've been thinking." He took a breath. "About what I said in the car. About finding our own place."
Victoria's hand tightened around her lemonade. "Joey, we talked about this."
"I know, I know, but hear me out. The money we've saved—it's not a lot, but it's enough for a down payment on something small. Two bedrooms. A little yard. Nothing fancy, but ours."
He turned to face her, his brown eyes bright behind his glasses.
"We can't raise a baby in my dad's house. It's already crowded with three of us. What happens when the baby's crying at three in the morning? What happens when we need a nursery?"
"We'll figure it out."
"Victoria." His voice was earnest now, leaning forward with the intensity of someone who'd been rehearsing this speech.
"I know the move here was hard. I know my dad's house isn't what you wanted. But this was supposed to be temporary. A few months, just until we saved enough for the IVF. Well, the IVF worked. You're pregnant. We have a baby coming. Don't you want our own space?"
No, she thought. No, I don't want our own space. I want to stay here. I want to be near Brock. I want to wake up in the mornings knowing he's in the next room. I want to steal moments in the kitchen while you're at work. I want—
"The baby's going to be expensive," she said. "Diapers. Clothes. Medical bills. Dr. Chen said there might be complications—she wants to monitor my hormone levels, and that means more appointments, more co-pays."
"So we budget. We make it work."
"We've already spent twenty thousand dollars on the IVF." She turned on the swing to face him. "Twenty thousand, Joey. And that was on credit. We're still paying it off. If we add a mortgage on top of that—"
"We don't have to buy. We could rent."
"Rent in Beckley isn't cheap either. Not for something decent."
His expression flickered. The hope was still there, bright and fragile, but confusion was creeping in at the edges. "I thought you'd be happy. I thought you'd want to get out of here."
"I just want to be practical." She softened her voice. "We have seven and a half months. That's not that long. If we stay here, we can save more. We can build up a cushion. Then, when the baby comes, we won't be scrambling."
"But—"
"Please, Joey." She took his hand. Squeezed it. "I'm not saying forever. I'm just saying not yet. Let's get through the first trimester. Let's make sure everything's okay with the baby. Then we can talk about moving."
He searched her face. She could see the accountant's mind working—the numbers, the logic, the careful calculation of risk and reward.
Joey had always been cautious. It was one of the things she'd loved about him when they first met, the way he thought things through before jumping.
He wasn't the kind of man who leaped off cliffs without checking the water first.
"Okay," he finally said. "Okay, you're right. We should wait. Save up more."
"Thank you."
"But we can't stay here forever." He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "I want our own life, Victoria. Our own family. Just you and me and the baby. That's all I've ever wanted."
Not just you and me, she thought. Not anymore. Maybe not ever again.
She leaned her head on his shoulder and watched the sunset paint the sky in shades of orange and pink. The porch swing creaked. The crickets began their evening chorus. Inside the house, she could hear Brock moving around in the kitchen—the clatter of dishes, the opening of the refrigerator door.
She loved him.
The realization landed without fanfare, without drama. It was just a fact now, as solid and immovable as the mountains in the distance. She loved Brock Carter. She loved the way he touched her. She loved the way he looked at her. She loved the way his voice went rough when he talked about the baby.
She loved him, and she was married to his son, and there was no way out that didn't destroy everything.
Joey's arm came around her shoulders. His lips pressed against her hair. "I love you," he said. "I love you so much, Victoria. I'm so glad this worked. I'm so glad we're finally having our baby."
Their baby.
Not Brock's. Not the product of betrayal and lies and stolen moments in the kitchen. Theirs.
"Me too," Victoria said. And the lie tasted like lemonade—sweet on the surface, bitter underneath.
The screen door banged open. Brock stepped onto the porch, a beer in one hand, his face carefully neutral. "Dinner's ready if you two want to eat."
"We'll be right in," Joey said.
Brock's gray eyes met Victoria's for one electric second. Then he turned and went back inside, the screen door slamming shut behind him.
Victoria pressed her hand to her belly. The baby was the size of a blueberry now.
Dr. Chen had shown them on the app—a tiny blueberry with a heartbeat that raced like a hummingbird's wings.
In seven months, that blueberry would be a person.
A person with Brock's eyes or Brock's jaw or Brock's steady, quiet strength.
And Joey would call that person his own.
The porch swing creaked. The sun sank lower. And Victoria sat with her husband's arm around her shoulders, loving another man, carrying another man's child, and waiting for the truth to come out.
Because deep down, in the place where she couldn't lie to herself, she knew it would. Secrets like this didn't stay buried. They grew, like the baby inside her, until they were too big to hide.
The only question was when.