Chapter 2
Molly
Two weeks.
Fourteen days of Kendall Brooks in my guest room, and I'm starting to forget what my own kitchen looks like.
Kendall stands at the stove with my spatula in her hand. Taz sits at the counter, already dressed, reading his phone. She tips two eggs onto his plate without breaking the story she's telling.
"That diner outside Bozeman, Tazzy," she says, flipping an egg with a flourish. "Junior year. Tell me you remember the waitress who kept filling your cup every time you tried to leave."
"Her grandson was in the hospital," Taz says without looking up. "She needed to talk."
Kendall laughs and points the spatula at him. "For forty-five minutes. You ordered more hash browns so she wouldn't think we were rushing her. I thought they'd need to roll you out."
The corner of his mouth lifts. "She kept showing me his picture. Little guy had a hat bigger than his head."
"You kept the photograph she gave you, didn't you?" Kendall sets down the spatula, her voice soft as a lullaby. "I knew you would. You never could walk away from somebody who needed you."
I stop in the doorway. Apparently I should have served hash browns with my last cry for help.
"Morning," I say. "Is there still hot water?"
Kendall turns with a smile that belongs on a welcome mat. "Molly! I made extra eggs. Come sit with us."
"I think I'll start with water," I say. "Water hasn't personally attacked me yet today."
Taz looks up. "You were sick again?"
"About an hour ago," I tell him. "And before that. At this point the bathroom and I should exchange emergency contacts."
He frowns at me over his coffee. "You need to eat."
"I'm aware of the general concept," I say. "The difficulty is convincing breakfast to remain breakfast."
He pushes his plate away. For a second I think he's getting up. Instead he checks the time.
"Did you try the crackers?" he asks the screen of his watch.
"They're beside the bed," I say. "I'm considering leaving them there in my will."
"I had the worst nausea at first," Kendall says, tipping her head at me with a sympathy that doesn't reach her eyes. "I used to keep a little bowl of almonds with me. Much less messy than crackers."
"I'll alert the cleaning staff when I finish vomiting," I tell her.
Her smile falters. Taz says my name, quietly, a warning tucked into it.
"She was trying to help," he says.
"I'm aware." I set my glass down harder than I mean to. "I'd rather you ask what I need before we hold a committee meeting about my food."
He exhales through his nose. "Okay. What do you need?"
His phone lights up on the counter. He turns it over. That small effort almost undoes me, which is a miserable standard to have developed.
"Could you sit upstairs with me for ten minutes before you go?" I ask. "I don't need you to diagnose anything. I'd just like some company."
He glances at the oven clock. "I've got to leave in five."
"Then five," I say. "I can be a very efficient wife."
Kendall lowers the heat under the pan. "I can sit with her, Taz. You shouldn't be late because of us."
"Thank you, but I asked him." I keep my voice level. "We haven't had a conversation since yesterday morning."
"I'll be back this evening," he says. "We'll have dinner. Soup, plain. You tell me what you can manage."
"You said that yesterday," I remind him, "and I woke up when you came upstairs."
"It ran over." He spreads his hands. "I couldn't leave halfway through."
"You leave halfway through things with me all the time," I say.
Kendall's spatula clicks against the pan. The room goes unpleasantly quiet, and I'm suddenly aware that I've handed her a private piece of my marriage. A piece she can carry around and examine whenever she's bored.
Taz lowers his voice. "We don't have to do this here."
"I offered upstairs," I say.
He looks toward the doorway, then at the clock. I know the answer before he says anything.
"Tonight," he says. "I'll make sure."
"Please don't tell me to buy ingredients until you know," I say. "I'm tired of putting your dinner away."
He's already standing, sliding his phone into his pocket. "Skip cooking if it's easier. I don't expect you to stand at a stove when you're sick."
He means it kindly. He has solved the part involving food and missed the part involving him.
Kendall sets a fresh cup beside his plate. "Here. You didn't finish your coffee. Take a breath, both of you. Nobody thinks you're a bad husband, Taz."
I look at her. "I'd like to speak for myself in my own marriage."
Kendall's eyes go wide and wounded. "Of course. I only meant that being tired makes everything feel worse."
"Then let's allow me to be tired without also deciding what I mean," I tell her.
Taz rubs the bridge of his nose. His phone buzzes in his pocket. He takes it out and reads the message while I stand there with an empty glass.
"I'll call you at lunch, Mol," he says, already halfway to the hall.
I fill the glass myself. The smell of the eggs has become unbearable, but leaving feels like letting her keep the room. Staying feels worse.
"Keep your phone where you can hear it tonight," I say. "I'd like to know I can reach you."
He nods without looking up. I take my water into the living room.
Behind me, Kendall says, softly enough to sound considerate, "She must be exhausted. You should eat before those go cold."
A minute later his keys jingle in the hall. From the couch I watch him pat Kendall's shoulder on his way out, absent, friendly, the way you'd pat a fence post, and he doesn't look toward the living room at all.
The nausea hits hardest in the evenings.
I've tried everything: ginger, crackers, small meals, bland foods, and nothing helps. The moment the sun starts to set, my body stages a rebellion that leaves me curled on the bathroom floor, cheek pressed against the cold tile, too exhausted to even cry.
Tonight is worse than usual.
I've been in here for an hour, maybe more, dry-heaving into the toilet with nothing left to bring up.
My throat is raw. My ribs ache. And somewhere in the distance, I can hear the television from the living room, Kendall laughing at some sitcom, and Taz's text from six o'clock is still sitting on my phone: Dinner running long.
Don't wait up. If he were home and I called for him, he'd come. He would. He's not a monster.
But he isn't home, and I don't call him.
Because last time I did, three days ago, he stood in the doorway for exactly one minute before his phone buzzed and he said I need to take this and left me alone again.
And I can't—I can't do that again. I can't reach for him and feel his attention slide away like I'm an item to be checked off a list.
Eventually the nausea subsides enough for me to stand. I splash water on my face, brush my teeth, change into clean pajamas. My reflection looks like a ghost: hollow eyes, sallow skin, hair that desperately needs washing. I barely recognize myself.
The house is quiet when I finally emerge.
Taz's office light is off and his keys aren't on the hook, which means he's working late again, and Kendall's door is closed.
I should go to bed. Rest. Be grateful for the roof over my head and the husband who, despite everything, still comes home at night.
Apparently the standard is now a reliable return address.
Instead I grab my purse and head for the front door.
The pharmacy is four blocks away, and I walk them like a woman on a mission because I am one. My stomach is still churning, the nausea coming in waves now, and I pull my jacket tighter against the night air even though it's not cold.
The pharmacist, a gray-haired woman with half-moon glasses, watches me set the medication on the counter. "Have you used this before?"
"My obstetrician's office told me what to get," I say, holding up my phone. "I've spent ten minutes comparing the box to the message because apparently I can operate a vehicle but not a shopping basket."
She holds out her hand, patient. "May I see the message? Let's check it together."
I hand over my phone. She reads it, checks the package, then asks how long I've been sick and what I've managed to drink. For once, someone waits through the answer.
"If you still can't keep fluids down, contact your care team promptly," she says. "And use the instructions they gave you. Don't keep adding things because you're desperate for a fix."
"There goes my exciting evening of pharmaceutical improvisation," I say.
Her mouth lifts. "I'd prefer you boring and hydrated."
"My husband might enjoy a second opinion on boring," I say. "He's been conducting an extensive field study."
The joke comes out too sharp. I busy myself with my wallet.
"Sorry," I mutter. "You asked about nausea, not the entire institution of marriage."
She shakes her head, gentle. "You don't need to apologize. Do you have someone you can call if you feel worse on the way home?"
"My husband will be home soon." I say it quickly, grateful to have one solid-sounding answer. "It's only a few blocks."
She puts the receipt in the bag. "Keep your phone handy. And don't wait until you're too ill to ask for help."
"Thank you for checking the box," I tell her.
"That's what I'm here for," she says, and means it.
I take the bag with both hands. Such a small thing, somebody doing what they said they were here to do. I have to look away before she notices how close I am to crying about a receipt.
I step back onto the sidewalk, stuffing the receipt in my jacket pocket. The street is quieter now, that strange LA limbo between dinner crowds and bar closing, and I'm three steps from the crosswalk when I hear it.
"Well, well, well," a voice drawls from the dark.
Every muscle in my body goes tight.
Boone Keller is leaning against the brick facade of a bar called The Rusty Nail, broad and sunburned, with blond stubble and the same pearl-snap shirt he wore in high school, cigarette smoke curling around his face.
He looks exactly like what he is: my cheating ex, ranch-raised, mean as a snake with twice the venom.
Jolene is beside him, her arm looped through his, blonde hair catching the neon glow of the bar sign.
"Little Molly," Jolene drawls. "Out past your bedtime? We drive all the way down from Ojai for one wild night in the city, and look who's shopping on our block."
I don't stop walking. "Excuse me."
"Hey." Boone pushes off the wall, stepping into my path. "I'm talking to you."
"I'm not talking to you." I try to move around him but he shifts, blocking me. "Move, Boone."
"What's the hurry?" He's drunk. I can smell it, whiskey and old sweat underneath. "Where's your husband? Cowboy's fancy wife out walking all alone? Big important Taz too busy to walk his wife home?"
"None of your business," I say, and keep my eyes on the crosswalk.
His eyes drop to the pharmacy bag in my hand. "What'd you buy? Pills to help you sleep? Get real lonely in that big house, doesn't it?"
Jolene snickers, and the sound scrapes down my spine like nails. "Probably vitamins. Gotta keep herself pretty for when Taz actually comes home."
"If he comes home," Boone adds.
"Look at her," Jolene says. "Still thinks she's better than us in her city clothes."
I should walk away. I should cross the street, find another route, call an Uber. But two years of being invisible, of being dismissed, of being managed, and my patience snaps.
"Get out of my way, Boone," I tell him, low and even.
"Or what?" He grins, and it's all teeth. "You gonna make me?"
"If I have to," I say.
His hand shoots out and grabs my wrist, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. "You always did think you were better than us. Little beekeeper from nowhere, marrying into money, acting like you belong—"
I don't think. I just move.
My free hand comes up and grabs his wrist, twisting it outward the way my grandmother taught me when I was fourteen and scared of the dark.
Boone yelps, his grip loosening, and I keep twisting until his arm is at an angle that makes him stumble.
One shove and he goes sideways, catching his hip on a concrete planter and sprawling against it.
"Jesus Christ!" He's clutching his wrist, face red. "You crazy bitch—"
Jolene is laughing. She doesn't help him up or step toward me. She just laughs, high and sharp. "Oh my God, Boone. She dropped you."
"Shut up!" He tries to get his footing, slips on the planter's edge.
"Big strong cowboy, taken out by the beekeeper." Jolene wipes at her eyes, still giggling. "Wait till I tell the boys back home."
Boone rounds on her, red to the ears. "I said shut up, Jolene—"
I don't wait to hear the rest. I'm already moving, walking fast, then faster, then practically running toward the crosswalk. My wrist is throbbing where he grabbed it and my hands are shaking so hard I almost drop my pharmacy bag, but I don't stop. I don't look back.
Two blocks later, I pull out my phone.
Taz's contact stares up at me. That picture from our anniversary trip, him laughing at a joke I made, looking at me like I invented sunlight. I press call and bring the phone to my ear.
It rings and rings and rings.
"Hey, you've reached Taz. Leave a message."
The beep sounds and I open my mouth and nothing comes out for a second. Then: "Taz. It's me. I need you to—can you call me when you get this? Boone was there, and I just—I need you. Please call me."
I hang up. Stare at the screen. Wait for it to light up with his name.
It doesn't.
I walk the rest of the way home in the dark, checking over my shoulder every few steps like Boone might step out of a doorway. He doesn't. The streets stay empty and quiet and I've never felt more alone.
The house is dark when I get there. I was sure of it before I even turned the corner, but somehow it still hits me like a punch to the chest.
"Taz?" My voice echoes in the entryway. "Are you home?"
Silence.
I flip on lights as I go, moving through the living room to the kitchen like maybe he's just sitting in the dark waiting for me, like maybe this is some kind of surprise. But the kitchen is empty too, and that's when I see it.
A note on the counter. His handwriting, quick and slanted.
Took Kendall to urgent care, she had cramps. Back late. Love you.
I read it again.
Kendall, urgent care, cramps.
He's at the hospital. Right now, at this moment, my husband is sitting in some sterile waiting room holding another woman's hand because she had cramps, and I'm standing here with a bruise forming on my wrist and a bag of nausea medication and a voicemail he hasn't answered.
I'm pregnant.
I needed him tonight.
And he's with her.
I sink onto the kitchen floor, back against the cabinets, and I don't cry. Crying is behind me. I just sit there in the too-bright kitchen of my too-empty house, turning my wrist to watch the bruise bloom purple under the lights, and I think: This is it. This is what our marriage has become.
He doesn't even know what he missed.
And maybe that's the worst part.