Chapter 2

Derek did not come home until nearly one in the morning.

By then, Taryn, my oldest friend, had already brought me home from the hospital.

I sat at the dining table with my hospital bracelet still around my wrist.

Derek stopped when he saw it.

"You were admitted?"

I looked up at him.

"I texted you."

"I saw it. I thought you had only gone in to be checked."

He set his keys on the table, speaking as casually as if nothing unusual had happened all night.

"What did the doctor say?"

"I showed signs of preterm labor."

At last, he stopped moving.

"Is the baby all right?"

"For now."

Derek let out a breath.

"Good. You should have been clearer. Sending one line that says you are at the hospital and expecting me to know how serious it is is not reasonable."

I slid my phone across the table.

Marissa's photo filled the screen.

"Was this your emergency meeting?"

Derek barely glanced at it.

"Her new shoes cut into her heel. It would not stop bleeding, and she could barely walk."

"She was sitting inside a heated medical center."

"So?"

"Your wife, thirty-six weeks pregnant and having contractions on an exposed platform in a blizzard, had to wait for a stranger. But when your coworker hurts her heel, you drive her to the hospital yourself."

Derek frowned.

"Why do you have to compare two completely different situations?"

"Because you made two completely different choices on the same night."

"Corinne, Marissa panics when she sees blood, and she was in pain. You already had a ride coming."

A short laugh escaped me.

"So because I found a ride before calling you, I did not need my husband?"

"That is not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?"

Derek did not answer.

He poured himself a glass of water as though the conversation had already exhausted him.

"It is late, and you had a scare tonight. We will talk when you have calmed down."

The next afternoon, I went into the garage to drive to my follow-up appointment.

My SUV was gone.

The infant car seat we had installed two weeks earlier sat against the concrete wall.

Derek came through the door from the house, holding a set of keys that did not belong to my vehicle.

"Where is my car?"

"I loaned it to Marissa for a few days."

"Why?"

"Her car has a manual transmission. Her heel hurts whenever she uses the clutch."

"What am I supposed to drive?"

"Did the doctor not tell you to rest? It is safer if you do not drive right now."

"The doctor told me to avoid driving. He did not give you permission to hand my car to someone else."

Before Derek could answer, a horn sounded in the driveway.

My SUV pulled up outside the garage.

Marissa sat behind the wheel.

She lowered the window and smiled at Derek.

"The bandage really did help. But I need two display boards for tomorrow's client presentation. Where should the rest of the equipment go?"

Derek walked around to the rear passenger door.

He took out two folding display boards and set them beside the garage.

The last thing he removed was our infant car seat.

He placed it directly on the concrete floor.

The white swaddle blanket I had tucked around the base was trapped underneath it.

Marissa looked at me through the open window.

"The display boards and projector would not fit with the car seat in the back, so Derek said we could take it out for now. You are not due for another month. You probably will not need it yet, right?"

Derek put the folding boards back into the trunk.

"It is fine. I will reinstall the seat later."

Neither of them had asked me.

I had checked that seat against the manual three times, testing the angle and the harness over and over while imagining the day we would bring our daughter home.

Now they had pushed it aside as if it were nothing more than clutter taking up useful space.

Marissa drove away in my SUV.

I crouched down and lifted the swaddle blanket from the dirty floor.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

Marissa had sent me a message.

"Your SUV is so much more comfortable. My heel does not hurt at all when I drive it. Derek agrees that you should not be driving right now. Your husband takes such good care of people."

That evening, I showed the message to Derek.

"She is deliberately provoking me."

Derek did not even look at the screen.

He turned my phone facedown on the table.

"I am not having this argument again. You turn every ordinary comment into an attack."

"You will not even read what she wrote."

"Because I know Marissa."

"Do you know me?"

He was silent for several seconds.

"You have not been yourself lately."

I nodded and took my phone back.

"You are right."

I was no longer the Corinne I used to be.

The Corinne who explained the same hurt again and again, hoping her husband would someday decide to understand.

Back in the bedroom, I opened the safe at the bottom of the closet.

I removed my passport, medical records, marriage certificate, and the financial documents my attorney had requested.

Then I placed them all in the folder I had already prepared.

I sent my attorney one more message.

"How soon can the papers be ready for me to sign?"