Chapter 4

4: 4

4

The broom was shoved back into my hands.

The emcee didn't even look up. "The support staff have some initiative. Time to start sweeping up, I'd say."

Just yesterday she'd been calling me Ms. Fox with every other breath, telling me that choosing their hotel was the smartest decision I could have made.

Seems the hotel wasn't the only thing I got wrong.

Bonnie finished greeting the guests around her, all smiles, then saw the broom in my hands and her eyes crinkled with delight.

"Lois, you really shouldn't have worn that today."

"Who wears a formal dress to sweep floors? You'll change into something else in a bit."

"And I should pin a staff badge on you too, don't you think?"

She looked at my blank face and waved a hand. "This is exactly your problem. Not a shred of humor in you."

"Nathan already told me. We're leaving ten minutes for you to celebrate the baby's month milestone."

"And that's time I squeezed out purely for Nathan's sake."

"So you'd better make it count."

She pointed at the confetti scattered on the floor. "Can't even do one small job properly. There's still trash right here."

"Sweep it up, quick!"

From the day I married into the Winfield family, they'd picked at everything I did.

No sense of humor.

Couldn't cook.

Not gracious enough.

Couldn't read the room.

For a long time, I actually wondered whether I really was as useless as they said.

It's only now that I finally see it.

In this house, no one was ever on my side.

That's why every single thing I did could be picked apart.

"Family" always meant my mother-in-law, Nathan, and the widowed sister-in-law.

I was always the outsider.

And now even my baby was being made an outsider alongside me, his month-old celebration stolen right out from under us.

I didn't want my child growing up wronged the way I had, twisted out of shape in a family like this.

The moment I swept the confetti into the trash can, my head suddenly went clear.

I didn't want to live this life anymore.

The banquet was winding down. Before she went up onstage, Bonnie murmured, "Lois, everyone did come here for Hunter and me, after all."

"So just go up after I've finished speaking."

Nathan appeared behind me out of nowhere and wrapped his arms around me. "I already told Bonnie. She's leaving the last ten minutes for us."

"Stop being upset. Look how generous she's being."

I twisted my lips into something like a smile.

Her handing me ten minutes of the first-birthday party was generous.

Me giving up the entire month-old celebration, though, that was just taken for granted.

I looked around.

Almost everyone at this banquet was the widow's or Nathan's relatives and friends.

Two weeks ago, when we were drawing up the guest list, Nathan had used the excuse that my family found travel inconvenient to cut the fifty relatives we'd planned for down to just my parents, two people.

After that, I never asked about the list again.

Now I could see it clearly. This first-birthday party had been planned a long time ago.

"Lois."

Bonnie stood up onstage, looking down at me. "Come on up. Say whatever you'd like to say."

She still thought I'd cave like always, rush through a couple of sentences, then put down the mic and hand the room back to her and Nathan.

I took the mic, looked out at the crowd of relatives and friends below, and began.

"I'm so happy everyone could come to our first-birthday party today."

"They say good fortune comes in pairs."

"Besides Hunter's first birthday, there's one more piece of enormous good news."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nathan carrying the banner with our daughter's name, about to head up.

I snatched the banner away and pulled him to the center of the stage.

"And that news is this. Nathan and I have decided, today, to get a divorce."

"And he is about to marry his own widowed sister-in-law, Bonnie Rowe, in wedded bliss!"