Chapter 3

Natalie had bet she could win me over.

Lowell had bet she wouldn't last three months toying with me.

And that "lesson" Natalie kept talking about? It was just dragging Lowell off to a hotel to tangle in the sheets.

The joke was, I'd been kept in the dark the whole time.

Now, today, Lowell was telling me to my face.

"Marlin Henson, from start to finish, she was only playing a game with you."

"You were just a pawn to her."

"If her parents hadn't forced her to marry and have a kid, she'd never have picked you."

"She picked you because you were easy to control."

He stood up and brushed the bits of grass off his pants.

"Now the baby in Maya's belly is gone. Consider it a little lesson."

Natalie just gave me one look and reached out to take Lowell's hand.

"Let's go. Everyone's waiting on us."

"The game goes on."

I was left where I was.

Even that doctor in the white coat had walked off.

Only my cousin Maya was left, lying pale in the grass, her cries of pain gone silent now.

A new round of the game.

Lowell drew truth.

Someone asked him, "You and Natalie, childhood sweethearts all these years, have you two ever slept together?"

Lowell's face reddened for a moment.

"You even have to ask?"

"We slept together before we finished college."

"Her first time, I taught her."

The crowd around them broke into whoops.

"Damn, so the husband got himself a hand-me-down?"

"So what if she's a hand-me-down? Something Lowell's had, other people couldn't get even if they begged."

Natalie slid an arm around Lowell's waist.

She was smiling, completely at ease.

"Stop teasing him."

"He's thin-skinned."

Said like that, it sounded like she was defending him.

But everyone knew what it really was. A roundabout admission.

She and him really had done it.

I'd long been forgotten.

Slumped there in despair, hands shaking, I picked up the phone Maya had dropped on the ground, meaning to call an ambulance.

"Marlin, don't bother…"

Maya spoke, weak.

"The baby's gone."

My heart turned to ash.

I'd thought bringing Maya here today was to accept an apology.

Instead I'd cost her the baby she'd carried six months, gone just like that.

Blood rushed to my head, everything went black, and I fainted again.

When I came to, I was already lying in a hospital.

Once my head cleared, I bolted straight into the room next door.

Maya was staring at the ceiling, her eyes empty.

I slapped myself hard across the face.

"This is all my fault!"

"Marlin Henson, don't be so upset."

Natalie walked over and held out a report.

"Lowell was helping your cousin, really."

"When the prenatal report came back, he saw the baby in Maya's belly was deformed."

"There was no keeping it, either way."

I didn't look at her. I spat out one cold word. "Out."

Natalie flew into a rage on the spot.

"You're telling me to get out?"

"Marlin Henson, how do you have the nerve to tell me to get out?"

She grabbed me by the collar.

"Get this straight."

"You got Maya pregnant with your bastard, and I didn't hold it against you. That was me being generous."

"Don't act so innocent, putting on that dead-man's face."

I stared into her eyes, hollow, and suddenly I laughed.

No wonder she'd gone along so coldly while Lowell tore into me.

She actually believed Maya's baby was mine.

But that was plainly a lie.

That night, Lowell had grabbed me as a prank and tied me up in a basement the whole night.

Then he'd taken a doctored video and told Natalie.

"Your husband got drunk and cheated on you."

"And it wasn't just anyone. It was Maya."

He'd made a bet with the guys around him.

If Natalie believed it, he'd win a million.

But I'd explained it, many times.

Natalie never once wanted to believe me.

Every time she saw me take off my shirt.

Her face would go cold, and she'd say with disgust,

"Don't touch me. You disgust me."

Then she'd slam the door and leave.

And spend the whole night carrying on with Lowell.

By the next morning she'd come back dead drunk, her neck covered in hickeys.

I'd thought that once my cousin's baby was born.

A paternity test would shut those rumors up.

But Natalie never let me reach that day.

I tried to dig up some tender memory from these years of marriage, something to make me hate her a little less.

The only thing I could come up with was one.

Valentine's Day the year we were closest.

For once, Natalie had brought me an armful of roses.

Happy, I counted them again and again, and found only ninety-eight.

"Did the shop clerk miscount?"

I asked her. "There's only ninety-eight. Where's the one that's missing?"

Back then, even if Natalie had tossed off some lie, that the clerk miscounted, or one had dropped by accident.

It would still have warmed me.

But she went and told the truth, cruel and careless both.

"Lowell thought it looked nice, so he pulled one out and gave it to some girl on the street."

"Close enough anyway. You can't tell one's missing, so quit making such a fuss."

All I had left was silence.

Just like now.

Natalie gave a self-mocking laugh and let go of me.

"Look how pale your face is, like a vampire."

"Instead of wasting the effort bickering with me over every little thing,"

"you'd be better off checking out early, going home, and having Mrs. Wang stew you a chicken to build your strength back up."

Natalie assumed I would still go back to that house.

Assumed I'd freeze her out the way I had a thousand times before.

Assumed that once I cooled off on my own, everything would be fine.

Just then Lowell's call came in, inviting her out.

And sure enough, Natalie lost all patience for sitting with me.

She set a bank card on the nightstand.

"There's five hundred thousand on the card. Call it compensation."

"The thing with the baby, just treat it like it never happened."