Chapter 3

Grant's gaze moved from the Lakeside charge to the blue folder beneath my hand.

"Why are you going through my accounts?"

He offered no apology, not even a denial. Just a question about my right to look.

"They are our accounts," I said.

"That one is for business expenses."

"Is Vanessa a business expense?"

His face hardened. "She had a medical emergency."

"At three in the morning? Four months in a row?"

"You are exhausted and upset. We should talk when you are calmer."

I looked at him and understood how many times he had ended conversations that way. Not by answering, but by making my reaction the problem.

"Go shower," I said. "You smell like her."

Grant flinched. I walked past him before he could respond.

The next morning, I made an appointment with my family doctor. I did not tell Grant where I was going.

Dr. Helen Carter listened while I described the nausea, dizziness, missed period, and the supplements Vanessa had been giving me.

"How long have you been taking these?" she asked.

"About a year."

Her expression changed. She sealed the bottle in an evidence bag and ordered bloodwork.

"Do not take another one," she said. "I am sending these to the hospital lab."

"What do you think is in them?"

"I do not know yet."

"Could they be the reason I have not been able to get pregnant?" I asked. The question tasted like ash in my mouth.

Dr. Carter did not answer immediately. "Let us wait for the results before we decide what anything means."

The nurse drew six tubes of blood. When I left, the blue folder felt heavier beneath my arm.

Vanessa was waiting in my kitchen when I returned. She wore Grant's gray sweatshirt and nothing on her feet.

My house key sat on the counter beside her. I had given it to her three months ago when she lost her apartment, back when I thought she just needed a place to sleep.

I set the blue folder on the table. "How long?"

"Does it matter?"

"It matters to me."

"Then almost a year."

The room seemed to narrow around us. My birthday had been eleven months earlier. Grant had left dinner halfway through because a warehouse alarm had gone off. He came home at four in the morning with a bruise on his neck.

"My birthday," I said.

Vanessa pulled the oversized sleeves over her hands. "He was lonely. You were always so careful. So reasonable. You turned every feeling into a discussion."

"And you made him feel alive?" I asked. "Is that what he told you?"

"He said you manage this marriage like a contract," she retorted. "He wanted someone who actually needed him."

"If he loves you," I said, "why are you still sleeping in my guest room?"

Vanessa's smile disappeared. "He needs time."

"No. He needs you hidden. There is a difference."

She stood up so quickly the chair scraped the floor. "You just hate that you aren't the one fixing me anymore."

"I gave you a place to live. I got you your job at his company."

"Exactly," Vanessa snapped. "The room is yours. The job is yours. You loved handing those things to me because it reminded us both who had everything and who had nothing." She leaned closer, and the smell of Grant's cologne on her clothes hit me. "At least when Grant chose me, he didn't do it out of pity."

"I didn't pity you," I said. "I took care of you."

"And I took care of you, too," she fired back. "Who made sure you remembered your supplements every Sunday? I was the one paying attention to your body."

Her eyes flicked to the counter, searching for something.

"Where is the bottle, Lauren? You really shouldn't skip them. Especially since you still can't give him a child."

Every sound in the kitchen disappeared.

I slapped her.

The sound cracked through the room. Vanessa stumbled into the edge of the table. She stared at me, one hand pressed to her red cheek.

Then the front door opened.

Grant stopped in the entryway. He saw Vanessa crying. He saw the broken glass. He saw my hand still raised.

Vanessa collapsed against him.

"I came to apologize," she sobbed. "She said she would make sure I lost the baby."

"That is a lie," I said.

Grant wrapped an arm around her before looking at me.

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Ask her what she said about the pills."

"What pills?"

Vanessa clutched her stomach. "Grant, it hurts."

His attention snapped back to her. "We need to go to the hospital."

"Of course," I said. "You always do."

He lifted her into his arms. At the door, he turned.

"Pack a bag and stay somewhere else tonight."

I stared at him. "You are throwing me out of my own house?"

"I am asking you to leave until you can be around Vanessa without attacking her."

"And if I do not?"

His jaw tightened. "Do not make me call the police, Lauren."

There it was.

Not the affair. Not the lies. The final choice.

He would use the police to remove his wife so his pregnant mistress could feel safe in her home.

They hadn't just broken my heart; they had replaced me. Standing in my own hallway, looking at my husband defend my little sister's unborn child, I realized they were already a family.

And I was just the squatter they needed to evict.

I carried the blue folder upstairs and packed one suitcase.

I took my parents' photographs, three changes of clothes, my laptop, and the small jewelry box that had belonged to my mother.

Everything Grant had bought me stayed behind.

When I stepped outside, rain was falling hard enough to blur the streetlights.

A dark sedan waited at the curb.

Rebecca got out before I reached it.

She opened her arms, and for the first time all day, I nearly fell apart.

"We can leave now," she said. "You do not have to explain anything in the rain."

I put the suitcase in her trunk.

My phone rang.

Dr. Carter.

I answered while Rebecca waited beside the driver's door.

"Lauren," the doctor said, "your first results are back. There are two things we need to discuss—one about the pills, and one about your bloodwork."

Something in her voice made my skin go cold.

"What did you find?"

She hesitated.

"Before I tell you either result, I need to know whether your husband can hear me."