Chapter 5: No Draw This Week

Philip waited until Maisie was asleep before he sat me down in the study.

"Who is he?" he asked.

"Who is who?"

"Your mother says you want an apartment in Providence. A woman who wants an apartment wants a man to help her pay for it."

"I want a job."

"You have a job. You're my wife."

He said it kindly.

That was the worst part.

He leaned back in the leather chair and looked at me with his calm gray eyes.

"I think we need to reset," he said. "No draw this Sunday."

I stared at him.

"Philip, Maisie needs her field trip money."

"Maisie needs a mother who isn't shopping for a new life."

"I'm not."

"Then there's no harm done." He held out his hand. "Your phone."

I put the family phone in his palm.

He dropped it in his desk drawer, took Maisie's tablet from the stack of mail beside him, and dropped that in too.

"You can have them back after the party," he said. "When you've apologized to Whitney for whatever you said to her at the school."

"I said nothing she didn't say first."

"I'm told you recorded her."

News traveled fast in the Carraway house.

I wondered which parent in the pick-up line had a cousin in his office.

"Delete it," Philip said.

"No."

For a moment he did not move.

Then he smiled, slowly.

"Interesting," he said. "Six years without a no, and this week you've found two."

He stood, and I stood with him.

He locked the study with a small brass key and pocketed it.

"Good night, Rosalind."

I climbed the stairs with my hand on the rail.

In Maisie's room, I sat on the edge of the bed in the dark and watched her breathe.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Gave Me Fifty Dollars to Live, I Left Him with Nothing from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.