Chapter 3 #2
“But something else happened,” she says, voice low. “Something that makes me think you’re over there crying and not celebrating the baby you’ve wanted for so long.”
“Yeah.” I stare down at the table, my fingers tracing a scratch from a craft project when I tried to make a wreath for the front door instead of buying one like usual.
It hadn’t gone well. I wound up with a gigantic mess on my hands and so many scratches on my arms, you’d think I’d been fighting with five feral cats. “Something bad. He was…”
“What did he do?” she repeats, voice harder now.
I shake my head, tears spilling down my cheeks. “I can’t say. I just feel sick. That he would… that I…” I clap my hand over my mouth, the contents of my stomach roiling.
All I had this morning was toast and yoghurt. I was too nervous about the blood results to eat much, then too excited about them to eat lunch afterward.
“Ellie,” Lila says gently, “start from the beginning.”
I take a shaky breath. “He didn’t answer his phone. And he always answers. So I went to his office to tell him about the baby because I didn’t want to wait until he got home.”
I stop.
He would have come home, kissed me on the lips, asked about my day, and I’d have asked about his, and I never would have known.
How many times did he do that, and I never knew?
“I went to his office. His door was open. Just a little. And I thought at first he was napping. The blinds were down, and the lights dimmed. I could just about see his face from the door. I thought he was napping.”
“But that isn’t what he was doing. Was it?” My sister’s voice is quiet. Controlled.
My eyes land on the pregnancy test. I remember how it felt in my hand.
How excited I was to push the door open.
How ready I had been to creep over to his desk, put it down in front of him, and have the positive test be the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes after his nap.
He’d beam up at me, then get to his feet and spin me around when he learned I was pregnant.
“He groaned loudly. Then he opened his eyes and then—” My voice cracks, but I force myself to keep going. “And then his assistant got up from under his desk, and she was wiping her mouth, and I know how it always looks when he just had sex.”
“Jesus.”
I force myself to say it. “Jackson saw me, and he got up. His pants were down. H-he had pink lipstick on his cock, Lila. He was having his assistant give him a blowjob at his desk while I was learning that we were going to have a child.”
Lila fills the next several seconds with loud cursing.
I press a hand to my mouth, trying to steady myself.
What Jackson did has tipped my world so far off its axis that I have nothing to hold on to for balance. Nothing to keep myself upright.
“What did he say?” Lila asks once she’s run out of curses.
“That he could explain.” I let out a shaky, bitter laugh. “That it wasn’t what I thought. As if there could be another explanation for his assistant’s lipstick on his dick. What kind of fool does he take me for?”
“What a prick.”
I rub a hand over my throbbing temple. “Yeah.”
“Are you okay?”
If anyone else had asked, I’d tell them yes. But this is Lila. My sister. One of the few people I can let myself be vulnerable with.
“No. I don’t know if I ever will be again. I was so sure he loved me.”
“Was this the first time?”
I close my eyes, tears squeezing between the lids to soak my cheeks and drip onto the table.
“I’ve been trying not to think of that. But I don’t think it was.
They looked too… easy around each other after.
Not like something that just happened once.
I don’t want to believe he would pull her into his lap if he hadn’t seen me, but I can’t help but think they did more than this. ”
“Do you want me to kill him?”
It’s not a joke or an idle threat.
“No.” If I said yes, she’d be in his office with a chef’s knife before I could tell her I was only joking. “I dropped my ring on the floor. I didn’t want it on my finger a second longer.”
“Does he know about the baby?”
“No.”
“Will you tell him?”
There’s no judgment in her voice, no suggestion about whether she thinks I should or should not.
“I should. It’s his baby as much as it is mine, but the thought of him being near me… going to hospital appointments… sharing this with him makes me feel sick to my stomach.”
I press a hand to my churning belly. Those were not idle words.
“You need time to figure out what to say and do,” she says firmly.
“I never want to see him again, Lila. The house smells like him, and everywhere I look, I see him, and I just want to forget all of it. Go back in time to find sixteen-year-old Ellary Barnett and warn her never to date him.”
“You’re leaving him.” There’s no surprise in her voice.
Now I know why I needed to call her. Not to hear her curse and threaten to kill Jackson. To listen to me talk through a decision I made before my wedding ring hit his office carpet.
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to come over and help you pack?”
“No. You have to work. I’m going to pack up a few things and go to Mom and Dad’s. Just clothes and important papers. Anything else can wait.”
After college, we moved in together, and almost everything we have, from furniture to electrical goods, is stuff we picked out together.
There has to be a way to figure out who gets what, but I can’t deal with that now.
I just need to be out of this house and away from the smell of his cologne and the happy memories I can’t trust anymore.
“I can’t believe he just let you walk away,” she says. “Did he even try to call you?”
“I didn’t answer. He sent a text, but I haven’t read it.”
“He should have gone after you, but clearly he doesn’t respect his wedding vows and hasn’t for a while, so he doesn’t care.”
“Lila, he kissed me goodbye before he went to work. Why would he do that when he was going to—” I swallow my words, and I think about that.
How normal he was this morning. How loving.
Nothing about him made me think he was being distant or keeping a secret.
Nothing. “He smiled, and everything seemed so perfect. If I told him I was pregnant then, would he still have gone to work and done that with Rachel?”
“Don’t, Ellary,” she says softly. “Don’t torture yourself with maybes and would-bes. Are you sure you don’t want me to come over?”
“I’m okay,” I say automatically. “Well, not okay. Just… I’m going to pack a few things and head straight to Mom and Dad’s. I’m not looking forward to telling them what happened.”
I could be blunt with Lila. Telling my parents is another thing entirely.
“I’ll give them a heads-up, save you having to repeat it all again. They’ll understand, and they will keep Jackson away if he tries to come over.”
We’ve always been a family that pulls together in times of crisis.
Not that we’ve had many of them over the years, but I’m beyond grateful that I’m not living this hell alone.
I honestly believe I would be sitting on the floor in my closet, the door closed, sobbing my way through a box of tissues otherwise.
“He won’t. He didn’t come after me.”
“But that doesn’t mean he won’t later. I’ll come over after work and help you get settled, and in case Jackson decides he doesn’t want to listen when you tell him you’re leaving him.”
I can’t imagine him being difficult about our marriage being over when he didn’t immediately come after me. I must have dropped my car keys at least five times before I got my door open; I was that blinded with tears.
Maybe he wanted me to go. Maybe the unread text message I have on my cell phone is him telling me he’s secretly loved Rachel all this time, and he’s relieved I finally know about their affair and he’s leaving me for her.
“Okay,” I say, too weak to refuse her offer.
“I love you, sis. You will get through this, and Mom, Dad, and I will be right by your side all the way.”
My lips tilt up in a faint smile. “I know. I love you too.”
We hang up, and I get to my feet, still hurting, still struggling to accept everything that happened, but I’m up, and I will get through today. Somehow.
I pick up my purse and give the kitchen a scan.
My gaze lingers on the meat I took out this morning to defrost, ready to make dinner tonight.
I should have defrosted it in the refrigerator last night and put the pot roast in the slow cooker to cook on low for ten hours, but I was so nervous about the blood test results that I forgot.
Pot roast with potatoes and green beans has always been Jackson’s favorite. I wanted to surprise him with his favorite meal on the day our family finally became complete.
I walk out of the kitchen, heading upstairs to pack what I will need to start a new life. Except it won’t just be me.
My hand settles on my still-flat belly.
It will be the two of us. Me and the child I haven’t told Jackson about, and I’m not sure I want to.