April Joke, Permanent Scar novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Two Lines

A blood test confirms the pregnancy, Hannah splits the baby fund, tells her sister everything, and arrives at the chapel to find Seth blocking the door.

Dylan left at seven with a garment bag over his shoulder.

He said it held his good suit for the Dayton client.

I stood in the doorway in my robe and watched him load it into the trunk.

"Midnight," he said. "Don't wait up."

"I won't," I said.

He kissed my forehead and drove away, and I stood very still and let him.

Then I got dressed, and I went to the lab for my blood test.

The nurse who drew it was gentle and chatty, and she asked if I had any plans for the day.

"A few," I said.

She taped a cotton ball to the crook of my arm and told me the results would come by noon.

I sat in my car in the parking lot with my hand on my stomach.

Nothing showed yet, and nothing felt different.

I said it out loud anyway.

"Hi," I said. "I'm Hannah. I'm still figuring out how this goes."

My voice shook, and I laughed, and the laugh turned into crying for about a minute.

When it stopped, I felt lighter.

The next stop was the bank.

The woman at the desk had helped us open the Baby account four years ago, and she remembered me.

"Mrs. Winchell," she said. "How can I help?"

I put my ID on the desk.

"I want to split the Baby account," I said. "My half goes into a new account in my name only."

She tapped her keyboard.

"There's a pending charge," she said. "Four thousand eight hundred, from a venue."

"I know," I said. "That one is his."

She looked at me for a moment and then nodded.

"The balance is thirty-one thousand two hundred," she said. "Half of that is fifteen thousand six hundred."

"The pending charge comes out of his half," I said.

"I can note that on the transfer."

"Please do."

She printed the receipt, and I folded it into my wallet next to my library badge.

I had never moved a dollar without telling Dylan before.

It was the easiest thing I had done all week.

At noon my phone rang.

"Mrs. Winchell?" It was the nurse from the lab. "Your result is positive. The hormone level is high and right where we'd expect at five weeks."

I put my hand over my mouth.

"Is that good?" I asked. "I mean, is it really good?"

"It's very good," she said, and I could hear her smiling. "Congratulations. Call your doctor's office to book your first visit."

I thanked her four times.

I drove straight to my sister's salon.

Beth was halfway through a color on a woman in foils, and she took one look at me and put down her brush.

"You're going to sit here and read a magazine for ten minutes," she told the woman in the chair.

She pulled me into the back room and shut the door.

"What happened?"

I told her about the door and the dare and the booking link.

I played her the recording, and her face got harder with each line.

"She sent him a text?" Beth said. "She told him you weren't invited?"

"I saw it on his phone."

"I'm going to drive over there and put that woman's head in a sink."

"Beth."

"Hot water," she said. "Very hot."

I opened my purse and handed her the three tests.

She stared at them.

Then she looked at me, and then at them again.

"Hannah," she said. "Are these..."

"Positive. The blood work too. I found out an hour ago."

She did not scream or cry.

She sat down on the shampoo stool and held the tests in both hands.

"Oh, honey," she said. "Oh, my sweet, stubborn girl."

"He doesn't know."

"Good."

"I want to see what he does today."

"You already know what he does today."

"I want to see it with my own eyes," I said. "I want his friends to see me see it."

Beth took a long breath.

"The chapel's at two?"

"At two."

She stood up and unhooked her apron.

"Then I'm driving," she said. "And you are not going in there alone."

"You can't leave a client in foils."

"She can wait. Her husband has lied to her about golf for years." She took her keys off the hook. "She'll understand."

We reached Willow Creek at ten to two.

It was a white chapel with a gravel lot and a small inn behind it.

Dylan's car sat near the front, with a limousine ribbon tied to the bumper of the car beside it.

I stepped out and smoothed my dress.

Beth parked at the edge of the lot and turned off the engine.

"I'll be right here," she said. "Go."

I walked toward the chapel steps.

A man stood in front of the double doors with his arms folded across his chest.

He was in a dark jacket, and he had not shaved, and he was not smiling.

It was Seth Reed, and he was blocking the way in.

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