The Mistress in the Room novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Changed Locks

Fran finds Lydia in her kitchen with a suitcase, puts Douglas's suits and Lydia's bag on the porch and has the locks changed. Lydia says Douglas told her Fran would let her keep the house.

I left Hannah asleep on the couch with Seth in the chair beside her, and I drove to Evanston with both hands locked on the wheel.

The porch light was on.

The front door was unlocked.

I had never in twenty-nine years come home to a house that smelled of someone else's tea.

Lydia Reiser was in my kitchen.

She stood at my stove in her dark green dress with a kettle in her hand, and a rolling suitcase leaned against the island.

She turned when I walked in, and she smiled.

It was a kind smile, the same one she had given me over the lemon cake.

"Fran," she said. "I'm so glad you came. I didn't want to do this by text."

"Get out of my house."

"I'd like to explain first."

"There is nothing to explain."

"There is," she said gently. "Please sit. You're shaking."

I was.

She poured the tea into one of my blue cups and slid it toward me across the counter.

I did not touch it.

"I never wanted you to find out like that," she said. "Douglas and I had a plan. He was going to tell you after the wedding."

"After the wedding," I said.

"After Hannah was settled. He didn't want to hurt her."

"Then why is his tongue in your mouth on a screen in front of my daughter?"

Her smile did not move.

"I don't know how that clip got in the folder," she said.

I watched her say it.

She held my eyes for a second too long, and I thought, she has said this to herself in a mirror.

I took out my phone and called a locksmith who answers at night.

"Two locks, front and back, tonight," I said. "Evanston, on Linden Road."

"Twenty minutes, ma'am."

Lydia set the kettle down.

"Fran, I'm six months pregnant."

"Then you'll want to sit in a car with a heater."

"I have nowhere to go. Douglas said I could stay here until he found us a place."

"Douglas doesn't own this house," I said. "My mother left it to me, and my name is the only one on the deed."

That was true.

I had signed the papers myself, thirty years ago, because Douglas said his name on a mortgage would hurt his credit for the business.

"He told me it was his," Lydia said.

"He told you a lot of things."

I walked up the stairs to the bedroom.

My closet was open.

Six of my dresses lay folded on the chair, and the hangers where they had hung were empty.

Lydia had been making room for herself before the dinner was over.

I stood in the doorway for a long moment, and then I started pulling Douglas's suits off their rail.

I carried them down in armfuls and laid them on the porch.

Shoes, ties, a gold watch box, the leather bag he took to Boston.

Lydia watched me from the kitchen doorway.

"You can't do this," she said.

"Watch."

A neighbor's light came on across the street.

The locksmith's van turned onto Linden Road with its amber light going.

I took Lydia's suitcase by the handle and rolled it out onto the porch beside the suits.

She followed it with a hand pressed under her belly.

"Fran, please. I'm carrying his child."

"I know," I said. "I watched him kiss it."

Her face changed then.

The warmth went out, and what was left was plainer and colder, and I saw it for exactly as long as it took her to put the smile back.

"You'll regret this," she said softly.

"I regret twenty-nine years."

The locksmith came up the path with a bag and a flashlight.

"Which door first?" he asked.

"Front," I said.

Lydia stood at the edge of the porch and took out her phone.

She put it on speaker.

It rang twice, and my husband picked up.

"Lyd? Is Fran there? Put her on."

"I'm here," I said.

"Fran, listen to me. Let her sleep in the guest room. She's pregnant. You can hate me in the morning."

"Goodnight, Douglas."

"Fran."

I ended the call from my own phone, and the locksmith drilled out my front lock.

Lydia looked at me with her arms folded over her belly and the porch light on her face.

"He told me you'd let me keep it," she said.

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