CHAPTER THREE
SYDNEY
Iknew I was pregnant before the test confirmed it.
My body remembered pregnancy even though seven years had passed since Tyra. Coffee smelled wrong. I was tired in a way sleep did not fix. My breasts hurt, and one morning Tobias hugged me from behind while I made toast and I nearly elbowed him by reflex.
I bought the test at a pharmacy across town.
Two lines appeared almost immediately.
I sat on the edge of the guest bathroom tub with the test in my hand and stared until my vision blurred.
Tobias and I had talked about another child. He had never pressured me. The first time the subject came up, he told me Tyra had already made him a father and that anything else would be a gift.
I pictured telling him.
He would laugh first. Tobias always laughed when joy surprised him. Then he would probably touch my stomach every time he passed me for the next nine months as if checking whether the baby was still there.
I pictured Tyra as a big sister, bossy and protective and absolutely convinced she knew more about babies than anyone else in the house.
For several minutes, happiness crowded everything else out.
Then my phone buzzed.
Finnegan had sent a photograph.
It was old and grainy, pulled from an escort website I had hoped disappeared years ago. I recognized myself immediately. Younger. Heavier makeup. A dress I had worn to three bookings because it photographed well.
His message followed.
Last chance. I send this to the Lewises next. Maybe the papers. Rich families hate scandals.
My happiness vanished so quickly it frightened me.
He had proof now. He was no longer relying on my fear that he might talk. He had found something he could send with a few taps of his thumb.
I looked down at the pregnancy test.
I could not let Tobias hear the story from Finnegan or, worse, from Nancy.
That evening I made a decision.
I would tell Tobias everything.
I would tell him about Finnegan, the bills, the agency, the bookings, the money he stole, and the shame I had carried afterward even though I knew shame belonged more properly to the man who exploited me.
Then I would tell him about the baby.
I wanted the hard truth out of the way before I gave him something joyful.
The next morning I practiced in the mirror while Tobias showered.
"There's something I should have told you a long time ago."
It sounded rehearsed because it was.
I tried again.
"Before I tell you something good, I need to tell you something difficult."
Still wrong.
Eventually I gave up. Tobias knew my voice too well. If I performed the confession, he would hear every line I had practiced.
I decided I would simply start talking and trust the man I had married to stay long enough to hear all of it.
Tyra had a sleepover scheduled for the weekend. I planned to tell him then.
Three days.
During those three days I became absurdly aware of my own body. Twice I caught myself resting a hand over my stomach in the kitchen. Tobias noticed the second time.
"You okay?"
"Fine."
He gave me a suspicious look, then let it go.
I hated lying to him.
That was the truth I had avoided admitting.
My secrecy had started as fear and turned into habit.
Every year that passed made the confession harder because I was no longer telling Tobias only what I had done before meeting him.
I would also have to explain why I had spent another year staying silent.
I knew he had a right to be hurt by that.
What I did not believe was that he would stop seeing me as the woman he loved.
He had defended me against his mother days earlier. He had raised Tyra as his own. He had held me through nightmares and sat beside me when I was sick and never once made me feel as though I owed him gratitude for loving me.
Love like that could survive an ugly truth.
I needed it to.
On Thursday afternoon, while I folded Tyra's laundry, Finnegan's photograph reached Tobias's parents.
I did not know that yet.
I still believed I had time to tell my husband who I had been before someone else told him who they thought I was.
The hardest part of those three days was watching Tobias be normal.
He texted me from work to ask whether I wanted Italian or Mexican for dinner.
He brought Tyra a ridiculous mechanical pencil because she had complained that everyone in class had one except her.
He left a note in my purse that said, Stop stealing my socks, wife, as if he had not been the person stealing mine for years.
Every ordinary kindness increased the pressure inside me.
On Wednesday night, I sat on the bathroom floor after everyone went to bed and opened the photograph Finnegan had sent.
I studied the younger version of myself. I remembered the dress. Navy blue, cheap fabric, one shoulder. I had bought it on clearance and worn it to bookings because it made me look more expensive than I was.
The woman in the photograph did not look ruined. She looked tired.
That realization made me angry at myself.
I had spent years allowing other people's imagined judgment to rewrite my own memory.
The work had cost me. Some nights had frightened me.
Some clients had been kind, some indifferent, some entitled in ways that still made my skin crawl when I remembered them.
None of that made me less worthy of the life I had now.
I knew that intellectually. Emotion did not always accept intellectual arguments.
I opened a blank message to Tobias.
Can we talk tonight?
I typed it. Deleted it. Typed it again.
Then Tyra called from her bedroom because she could not find the charger for her reading tablet. By the time I solved the emergency, Tobias was on a late call with Singapore, and I told myself the weekend remained the better plan.
The next morning he caught me standing at the refrigerator staring at nothing.
"You're definitely hiding something."
My heart jumped. "What?"
His mouth curved. "You bought the good orange juice and haven't complained about the price once."
I stared at him. Then I laughed so hard I had to hold the counter.
Tobias looked pleased with himself. "See? Confession."
I almost told him right there. Instead, I walked over, kissed him, and whispered, "Soon."
His hands settled at my waist. "Soon what?"
"I'll tell you what's been bothering me."
Concern replaced the teasing. "Okay."
"You promise you'll let me finish before you react?"
Tobias frowned. "That sounds ominous."
"Promise."
"I promise."
Those words stayed with me after everything fell apart. He had promised to let me finish. His parents simply reached him first.
On the final night before everything broke, Tobias found me in Tyra's room folding clothes.
"You're nesting."
My heart stopped.
"What?"
He grinned. "You do this when you're anxious. Organize things that are already organized."
I forced myself to breathe.
"I thought you meant something else."
"What else?"
"Nothing."
Tobias picked up one of Tyra's shirts and attempted a fold so terrible I took it away from him.
"You're banned."
"I've been married to you four years and still don't understand why shirts need corners."
"Because civilization matters."
He sat on the edge of the bed.
"Tomorrow night?"
I nodded.
"We'll talk?"
"Yes."
"Do I need wine?"
"Probably not while I'm telling you."
"After?"
I smiled. "Maybe."
He reached for my hand.
"Whatever this is, the anticipation is probably worse than the conversation."
I looked at him and wished that could remain true.
"I love you," I said.
Tobias squeezed my fingers.
"I love you too."
That was our last uncomplicated exchange as husband and wife for three years.
I hid the positive pregnancy test in the back of my underwear drawer.
The hiding felt ridiculous. Tobias had no reason to search there. Still, every time he opened the dresser for socks, my heart jumped.
Tyra found out by accident.
She came into the bathroom while I was staring at a second test and stopped in the doorway.
"Is that a baby test?"
I looked at her.
"How do you know what a baby test looks like?"
"YouTube."
I made a mental note to investigate that later.
"Yes."
Her eyes widened.
"Is there a baby?"
I nodded.
Tyra screamed so loudly Tobias called from upstairs to ask if someone was hurt.
I clapped a hand over her mouth.
"We're telling him this weekend."
She bounced in place.
"Can I tell him?"
"Absolutely not."
"Can I stand there when you tell him?"
"Maybe."
For the next two days, Tyra behaved like a child carrying nuclear launch codes.
Tobias repeatedly asked why she kept staring at my stomach.
We lied badly.
That memory became one of the hardest after we left.
Tyra had been excited to tell him too.
Tyra nearly exposed the pregnancy at dinner when she asked Tobias whether babies liked spicy food.
He looked between us.
"Why are we discussing babies?"
"Science," Tyra said immediately.
I kicked her gently under the table.
She grinned.
Tobias narrowed his eyes but let it go.
Later, while he loaded the dishwasher, Tyra whispered, "We're bad at secrets."
I whispered back, "Apparently not all of them."
The words sobered me instantly.
The pregnancy was a happy secret for three days.
My past had been a frightened one for years.
I bought a tiny pair of socks the day after the positive test and hid them with the test. They were absurdly small.
Every time I saw them, I pictured Tobias holding them in his palm and pretending he was not emotional.
After I left, those socks came with me in the suitcase.
Patrick wore them home from the hospital.
Tobias never knew they had once been intended as part of the way I told him.