Chapter 2

2: 2

2

My head was so numb it throbbed, my tongue stuck at the back of my throat, and it took a long time before I found my voice again.

"Nathan, forget for a moment that this was supposed to be the baby's month-old celebration. Since the wedding, this is the first time you're meeting my parents."

"They're well past sixty. They sat on a train for four hours to get here, and you seat them next to the storage room?"

Nathan sighed. He tucked my hair behind my ear and put on a helpless look.

"Your parents came all this way just to see you."

"What difference does it make where they sit?"

"Besides, didn't you say they've never once left that little town?"

"At their age, getting to see a big city at all is an honor for them."

My face must have looked bad enough, because Nathan added another line.

"I'm not looking down on them. When the baby turns one, I'll book a nicer hall, get your parents the top-tier flights and hotel. That works, doesn't it?"

Listening to Nathan hand out charity to my parents, my chest went tight, and the whole scene felt like something I'd lived through before.

When we married, we'd talked over the bride price.

Nathan glanced at the slight swell of my belly and rested his hand there, light.

"After the baby's born there'll be plenty of places we need money."

"Let's keep the bride price small. Ten thousand is enough for your parents to farm the land for years."

"When it's busy in the fields, I'll go over and help out. After all, they've basically gained a son."

I had only ever said my parents lived in the countryside. I had never mentioned what they did.

I told myself the misunderstanding would clear up the moment Nathan came home with me even once.

But every time I asked to visit my family, Nathan found a way to put it off.

Either the company wouldn't give him leave, or he wasn't cut out for rural life.

At first I genuinely believed those excuses.

If I hadn't seen him willing to forfeit his whole perfect-attendance bonus just to take his widowed sister-in-law's father in for a follow-up exam.

If I hadn't seen him break out in a rash all over from an allergy and still go to the farm resort with his sister-in-law and Hunter.

Maybe I really would have believed every excuse he gave me.

"His sister-in-law has it hard enough raising Hunter alone."

"You're a woman too. You of all people should understand how exhausting it is."

That one line, you're a woman too, cut me off every time.

Whenever I brought up how he favored her, he'd put on that here-we-go-again face.

Bonnie has it hard.

So when a light bulb went out at her place, Nathan made a special trip to drive over and fix it for them.

And when the baby spiked a high fever in the middle of the night, all I could do was flag a cab in the rain on the street.

By the time I reached the hospital my underclothes were soaked through, and I was sick for a month afterward.

So she never had to lift a finger with the cooking, the cleaning, any of it.

Every matter in this house, big or small, the first call always came to me.

His younger sister took a fall, and I had to nurse her at her side.

His great-uncle went out of town, and I walked the little dog left at his house every day.

Even pregnant, I did the cooking and the laundry, all because his sister-in-law said she was allergic to detergent.

Years of swallowed grievance clogged my throat until my eyes went red.

"Where's the baby's father?"

The emcee asked into the microphone.

"That's me."

Nathan straightened his boutonniere and was about to step forward when my voice cut him off.

"If you really mean to take my late brother-in-law's place at Hunter's first-birthday party."

"Then we get divorced."

By the last two words, my voice was shaking.

Nathan turned back, his face already gone dark.

"Divorce?"

He lifted his eyes, and the moment he saw my hands trembling exactly as he'd hoped, he gave a contemptuous little laugh.

"Lois, you know better than anyone the pain of a broken home."

"I know you'd never let our baby go through that."

"There's a good girl. Don't throw a tantrum. I'm going to rehearse."

With that, he turned and walked toward the stage.

He didn't spare me another glance.

"Lo, where's the venue?"

The message came through from my parents.

I wiped the tears off my face. "Mom, Dad, don't come."

"The month-old celebration is canceled. And have the family lawyer draw up a contract."

"I'm divorcing Nathan."