Her Husband's Other Life novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Doubling

The blood test is perfect and the bank alert is not: the baby fund paid for the honeymoon suite and years of transfers to Sabrina.

I went to my second blood test alone.

Ross had been gone an hour, wearing his wedding suit, his ring and the silver cufflinks.

I waited until his car turned off our street before I drove to the clinic.

The nurse filled one tube and taped a cotton ball inside my elbow.

"The doctor will call you in when the result is back."

I sat in the waiting room and tried not to count minutes.

For four years, waiting for a result had meant getting ready to be told no.

I read Sabrina's caption again.

Some traditions always lead you home.

She had tagged Willow Creek, and under her post Ross had left a comment: Just like old times.

He had promised not to contact me for a whole day, and he was keeping the promise by telling the whole internet.

"Mrs. Oxley?"

The doctor's office was small and warm, and she smiled before I sat down.

"Your numbers have doubled just the way we want," she said, and handed me the printout. "This is a healthy start, Cora."

For a few seconds I forgot Willow Creek.

I forgot Sabrina's hand on Ross's ring.

There was only a number on a page, and the small thing it meant.

"Do you want me to add Ross to your patient portal?" the doctor asked, turning to her screen. "He'll want the updates. He must be thrilled."

I saw the two coffee cups again.

"No, please," I said. "Keep everything private for now."

She looked at me a moment, then nodded and clicked something closed.

In the hallway my phone buzzed again, and this time it was the bank.

[Alert: Family Future Fund balance is below your set limit.]

I stopped walking.

That account should not have moved.

Our last treatment cycle was on hold, and we hadn't bought one thing for a baby.

I opened the app standing beside a rack of pamphlets.

The newest charge was from Willow Creek Hotel: ceremony package and honeymoon suite.

Under it, a dinner for fourteen.

Under that, a wedding photographer.

I looked from the screen to the photo on Sabrina's page, and I understood what I was holding.

Ross hadn't only agreed to her dare.

He had paid for it out of our child's money.

The fund had been his idea.

After our second failed cycle he opened the account and put his whole year-end bonus into it.

"This is for our baby," he told me, and kissed my hand. "First it brings the baby to us, and then it brings the baby home."

I believed him so completely that I let him manage every dollar.

Three weeks ago I had found a small wooden crib on sale.

Ross asked me to wait.

"We don't know what the next cycle costs," he said. "We have to protect the fund."

He would not risk it on a crib for our baby.

He had spent it on a honeymoon suite for her.

I went and sat in my car and scrolled back through the older history.

If he had used the account once, I needed to know if it was the first time.

It was not the first time.

There were transfers to something called Keene Events, which was Sabrina's company.

Some said consulting.

Some said nothing at all.

One date made my thumb stop.

It was the afternoon of my last failed procedure.

That evening Ross had held an ice pack on my hip while I cried.

"We'll try again," he whispered. "That's what the fund is for."

Two hours before that, he had moved money from the fund to Sabrina.

While I lay in hospital beds, and gave myself injections, and cried over negative tests, my husband had been feeding our baby's future to his first love's business.

I did not add up how much.

I only knew I had to keep what was left.

Geraldine Penrose's office was above a bakery, and she took the phone out of my hand without asking and read the screen herself.

"Don't move any of it," she said. "If you pull money out of a shared account he can say you did the same thing. Copy every statement and every transfer, and send the copies to me."

"He's spending it right now."

"Then it's being spent on the record," she said. "Let it."

At home I saved the whole history to a drive and emailed it to Geraldine page by page.

Only after that did I call Allie.

She answered on the first ring, still in her scrubs.

"I'm pregnant," I said. "And I'm leaving Ross."

I heard her breath catch.

"Tell me what you need."

I asked her not to tell my parents yet.

Then I asked if her great-aunt's apartment on Linden Street was still empty.

"I have the keys," Allie said. "I'll pick you up at six."

Before I hung up I looked at Sabrina's post one more time.

I sent Allie the address of Willow Creek.

[Allie: At six I'm there. But why are we going to a hotel??]

I looked around the house I had spent five years building with a man who was, right then, standing in front of a mirror in his wedding suit for someone else.

I typed back and sent it.

[To see exactly how my marriage ends.]

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