Chapter 6
Molly
"Would you like to know the sex?" the tech asks at my twenty-week anatomy scan.
I look at the empty chair before I answer. It's become a habit, checking for a man who has already told me he isn't coming.
"Yes," I tell her. "Please."
She smiles at the screen. "It's a girl."
A daughter. I put my hand over my mouth.
"Could you say that again?" I ask through my fingers. "I heard you. I just want to hear it again."
She smiles. "You're having a girl."
"My mother-in-law is going to buy every tiny shoe in California," I say, laughing. "I should warn the shops now."
The tech reaches for the printer. "Would you like an extra picture for her?"
"Yes, please," I say. "She'll pretend she's being sensible, but I know that woman. She'll carry it around until the ink comes off."
The tech points out the spine, the heart, the fingers. I ask her to show me the hand once more. For a moment, I forget the chair. My daughter has fingers. Such an ordinary thing, and I want to tell everyone I've ever met.
"Is Dad going to want a photo?" she asks.
The question brings the chair back. Kendall had a dizzy spell. Taz took her to the pharmacy. This was the scan he swore he wouldn't miss.
"I don't know," I say. "I honestly don't know."
The one mercy in all of it: Kendall is gone from our guest room.
Taz moved her into a condo across town two weeks after my bleeding scare, paid the deposit himself, carried her boxes down to her car.
I thought it was just him being kind, the way he's kind to strays and sick calves.
At least the house is quiet now. At least I can throw up without an audience.
At twenty-two weeks, at one in the morning, Taz stands in the bathroom doorway with his keys. I grip the sink and wait for the nausea to give me enough space to speak.
"Where are you going?" I ask the mirror.
"Kendall's having contractions," he says, not quite meeting my eyes. "Jensen thinks it's Braxton Hicks, but she's scared."
"Has she called her doctor?" I ask.
"She's calling." He jingles the keys once. "I said I'd come."
"You decided before you came upstairs," I say.
He looks at the wet washcloth beside my hand. "Have you been sick again?"
"You can probably retire the word again," I tell him. "Assume it's happening and ask if it stopped."
He shifts toward the door. "I'll get you water before I go."
"I can reach the tap," I say. "I'd like you to stay."
He looks down at his keys. I watch his thumb move over the truck fob.
"I won't be long," he says. "I just need to make sure she's all right."
"Who makes sure I'm all right?" I ask quietly.
He winces. "If you need me, call. I'll keep checking."
"I'm asking while you're standing here," I tell him. "Does it have to come through the phone to count?"
His mouth opens. The phone rings in his pocket before he answers. He looks at the screen, then at me.
"I'm sorry, Mol," he says, already turning. "I'll come straight back."
I turn toward the sink before he leaves. One hour later, his side of the bed is still empty.
At Thursday's childbirth class, Pam, a doula with a gray pixie cut and rainbow clogs who has been teaching this class since the nineties, asks Taz to put his hands against my hips.
"Ask her how much pressure feels useful," she says. "Don't guess."
"More," I tell him. "A little lower. There."
"Like that?" he asks.
"Keep doing that and I may renew your contract," I tell him.
Pam smiles. "Good. Now practice asking between contractions, so neither of you has to think about the words later."
His phone vibrates beneath the edge of the mat. The pressure shifts as one hand leaves my back.
"Taz," I say through my teeth. "Both hands, please."
He's already reaching. "I just need to see who—"
"I can tell you who's here," I say. "Your wife. Currently shaped like somebody smuggled a watermelon into a grievance."
He puts the phone down. "Sorry. Show me again."
Pam guides his hands back. When the birth video starts, I grip one of them and don't let go.
"I'm not going tonight," I tell Maggie on the phone the afternoon of the fifth class. "He's missed three. I can't keep sitting there explaining that he means to come."
"You could go without him," Maggie says. "Plenty of women do. Or I can take you."
"I know I can do it without him," I say. "Everybody keeps showing me how. I would like one person to be angry that I have to."
Her voice goes flint-hard. "I'm angry. Don't mistake me speaking quietly for approval of my son."
I close my eyes. "I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that."
"You can be cross with me," she says. "I won't fall apart. Do you want me to call Pam? Ask about catching up another way?"
"Not tonight," I tell her. "Tonight I want to stop looking at the empty place beside my mat."
"Then put the kettle on," Maggie says briskly. "I'll stay on the phone while you fix a plate. Tell me what you can manage to eat."
"Toast, possibly," I say. "We're in negotiations."
"Start with that." A pause crackles down the line. "And Molly? You don't need to make excuses for him to me. I gave birth to him. I already know he's capable of being an idiot."
By July, at thirty-seven weeks, the unfinished crib still stands beside the car in the garage.
One oak side is sanded smooth, a row of tiny bees sketched along the rail in pencil where he swore he'd carve them.
The other is still a stack of boards. Taz reaches around it for a tape measure on the shelf, and I stop beside him.
"Will it be ready?" I ask.
He follows my eyes. "Before she needs it. I'll finish it."
"You said that when I could still see my feet," I remind him.
"We have the bassinet for the beginning," he says. "There's time."
"I know where she's going to sleep," I tell him. "That's not why I asked."
He touches one of the penciled bees. "I wanted it to be special. I don't want to rush the sides and leave a rough edge."
"Then work on it," I say. "I'd rather hear you sanding out here than hear another reason you haven't started."
He's already turning toward the truck. "After the barbecue. I'll get back to it."
I nod and step around the boards. At least wood has the decency to look unfinished. People keep telling me how wonderful everything must be.
The summer barbecue at Topa Ridge is a company tradition: Williams Land & Cattle's annual thank-you to the staff, their families, the whole ranching community.
I used to love it. The smell of mesquite and grilled corn, the kids running between hay bales, the sun setting over the mountains while someone's uncle plays guitar.
This year I almost don't go. I'm thirty-seven weeks pregnant, exhausted, and my feet are so swollen I can barely fit them into sandals.
But I need this: a day back in the country, away from the LA house that's started to feel like a prison, a reminder of who I used to be before pregnancy turned me into a stranger in my own body.
"You sure you're up for this?" Taz asks as he helps me into the truck. His hand is warm on my lower back, steadying me. "It's a long drive."
"I've been ready since breakfast." I settle into the seat and he adjusts my seatbelt carefully, the way he used to adjust everything for me, back when I was the center of his attention. "I want to see the ranch."
He rests his hand on my knee as the city gives way to open land.
"She's moving a lot today?" he asks, eyes on the road.
"She'd like my ribs removed," I tell him. "I told her it's a rental and we don't allow structural changes."
He smiles, then shifts his hand when I guide it to the place she's kicking. "There she is. That's a good strong kick."
"You're welcome to receive the next one," I say. "I've done my share."
"We had a foal this week," he says. "Dark little filly, white star right here." He touches his forehead. "The mare won't let anybody near her unless she can keep an eye on both of them."
"Sensible woman," I say. "Is everybody healthy?"
"Both doing well." He glances over. "I'll show you when we get there, if you want. No walking all the way out. We can stop by the barn."
"I'd like that," I say, and mean it. "I want to smell hay that hasn't been arranged in a decorative basket."
He snorts. "You hated that basket."
"It cost more than feeding an actual horse," I tell him. "I felt obliged to hate it on principle."
He laughs, and for a few miles the truck sounds like it used to.
"I've missed this," I say quietly, watching the landscape shift from suburbs to farmland to the golden hills I grew up among.
"Missed what?" he asks.
"You." I don't look at him when I say it. "Talking to you."
His hand tightens on my knee. "Molly—"
"Don't." I shake my head. "Let's just have today. Okay? One good day."
The barbecue is already in full swing when we arrive. Long tables draped in checkered cloths, smoke rising from the pits, children chasing each other across the lawn. I recognize most of the faces: ranch hands, their wives, Maggie holding court by the lemonade station.
Taz stays close. He keeps a hand on my back as we walk, guides me to a shaded chair when my feet start to ache, brings me plate after plate of the only thing I can stomach these days: plain grilled chicken with a squeeze of lemon.
No sauce, no seasoning, nothing that might trigger the nausea that still lurks at the edges of every meal.
"You need anything else?" He crouches beside my chair, his green eyes soft the way they used to be when he looked at me. "More water? Ice?"
"I have everything I need." I reach out and touch his face without thinking about it, my thumb brushing his cheekbone. "Thank you."
He catches my hand and holds it there for a moment. "I know I've been—"
"Later." I pull my hand back gently. "We'll talk later. Today is good. Let's keep it good."
The trouble starts when they call everyone to dinner.
The family table is set up under the big oak tree, the one where Taz proposed to me eight years ago. White tablecloth, real silverware, place cards at each setting. Maggie's doing. She insists on maintaining standards even at a barbecue.
I'm walking toward my seat when I see the name card.
Kendall Brooks, in my chair, next to Taz.
"What the hell?" The words come out before I can stop them.
Taz is right behind me, and I hear his sharp intake of breath. "I didn't—that's not—I'll fix it."
But before he can move, Kendall appears.
She's huge. As pregnant as I am, maybe more, her belly straining against a white sundress that looks specifically chosen to draw attention. She walks straight to the table, sees the name card, and sits down in my chair like she belongs there.
"Kendall." Taz's voice is tight. "You need to move. That's Molly's seat."
Kendall looks up at him with those ice-blue eyes, and she smiles. "Is it? I thought family sat together."
"You're not family." My voice is shaking. "Get up."
"Oh, sweetie." She tilts her head, mock-sympathetic. "I think you're confused. I'm the mother of Taz's son. That makes me family now, doesn't it?"
The words don't make sense. They're just sounds, syllables that my brain refuses to process. Taz's son. Mother of Taz's son.
"What did you say?" I ask, and my voice doesn't sound like mine.
Maggie has come over with her plate, drawn by the commotion. Her face is carefully neutral, the way it gets when she's managing a situation. "What's going on here?"
Kendall turns to her, still smiling, and says loudly enough for the entire table to hear: "I was just telling Molly about the baby. Our boy is going to have your eyes, Maggie. I just know it. That Williams green."
Maggie's fork hits her plate with a clatter. "I beg your pardon?"
"Didn't Taz tell you?" Kendall presses a hand to her belly, the picture of maternal innocence. "We're having a son together. He's been so supportive through the whole pregnancy. Taking me to appointments, checking in every night—"
"Stop." Taz's voice cuts through the murmurs spreading across the lawn. "Kendall, stop."
But I'm not looking at Kendall anymore. I'm looking at him. At my husband. At the white pallor of his face, the guilt written across every feature.
"Molly." He reaches for my arm. "Molly, I don't believe it's mine. I was waiting until I could prove—"
And there it is. The confession. He doesn't deny it or look confused or ask what the hell she's talking about. Just I was waiting until I could prove.
"How long?" I barely get the words out. "How long have you known about this?"
"Since winter," he says. "But Molly—"
"December?" I'm doing the math in my head, counting backward through all the months of nausea and loneliness and 2 AM absences. "That was seven months ago. You've known for seven months."
"I didn't believe her," he says, reaching for me. "I still don't believe her—"
"You knew." I'm shaking now, my whole body trembling. "You let me throw up alone for five straight months. You missed the appointments that mattered to me, nearly every class, all the moments I kept asking you to share, because you were with her. Holding her hand. Taking care of her baby."
"I was trying to work out what to do—" he says.
"While I went to appointments alone? While I asked you to come home?" I step back from him, from the table, from everyone watching us. "You had time to make decisions for her. Every single day, you chose. And it wasn't me."
Someone gasps. Brenda from payroll puts a hand over her mouth. One of the ranch hands takes off his hat like somebody died, and a little boy by the lemonade asks his mother, loud and clear, why the lady is sitting in Aunt Molly's chair. Nobody answers him.
I don't care.
"Seven months," I say again, louder now, so everyone can hear.
"Seven months of lies. Sneaking out in the middle of the night, putting her first while your actual wife nearly landed in the hospital from dehydration because she couldn't keep water down.
" I press my hand to my belly, to our daughter, the one he's barely acknowledged.
"I hope it was worth it, Taz. I hope whatever you think happened with her was worth destroying everything we built. "
"Molly, please—" he calls after me.
But I'm already walking away, as fast as my swollen feet will carry me. I turn to Maggie at the end of the table, her face ashen.
"Maggie." My voice breaks on her name. "Will you drive me home? I can't—I can't be in a car with him right now."
She's at my side in an instant, her arm around me, guiding me toward her truck. "Of course. Of course, sweetheart. Let's go."
The drive back to LA takes forever. Maggie doesn't push me to talk, just keeps one hand on the wheel and occasionally reaches over to squeeze my arm. I stare out the window at the darkening hills and try to breathe through the contractions of rage tightening my chest.
"I didn't know." Maggie's voice is quiet and careful. "Molly, I swear to you, I didn't know. About any of it."
I turn to look at her. Her profile is tense, her jaw tight with an anger I recognize. She's not lying.
"Nobody knew," I say. "That was the point."