A Decade For Nothing novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Not For My Baby

Macy walks into the reception and says the baby is Levi's; he demands a test in front of everyone and she refuses; a bank alert shows Lydia emptied their savings.

The dinner went ahead without a bride.

I had told them to eat, and they did, in small silent clumps, with their phones face down beside the salmon.

I stood at the head table because I did not know where else to stand.

Joel brought me a glass of whiskey and I did not drink it.

My grandmother came and sat in Lydia's empty chair.

"Eat something," Nan said.

"I can't."

"Then hold a fork. It makes people feel better."

I held a fork.

Across the room, three of Lydia's friends were looking at me and whispering.

One of them lifted her phone, and then her eyes met mine and she put it down.

At half past four the double doors opened.

Macy came in alone, still in her pale green bridesmaid dress, her mascara running.

The room went quiet in a ripple, table by table.

She walked straight up the middle of the floor to me.

"Levi," she said. "Oh, Levi, I'm so sorry."

Her voice broke on my name.

"I never wanted her to find out like this. I was going to tell you first. I swear I was."

"Tell me what?"

She pressed both hands to her stomach.

"I'm fourteen weeks," she said. "It's yours. I'm so sorry. It was the eighteenth of March, and we were both so drunk, and I have hated myself every day since."

A hundred heads turned toward me.

I had been ready for a lot of things that afternoon.

I had not been ready for her to say it out loud, to my face, with her hands on her stomach and the whole room listening.

"No," I said.

"Levi, please don't."

"No. I wasn't at the Brecken on the eighteenth. I wasn't with you. I've never touched you."

Her face crumpled.

"You don't remember," she whispered. "That's what makes it worse."

Joel stepped up at my shoulder.

"He was in the ER on the eighteenth," he said, loud enough for the back tables. "I was there too, for an hour. His grandmother broke her wrist."

Nan stood up from Lydia's chair.

"I was on a gurney for three hours with my grandson holding my good hand," she said. "I had a broken wrist, girl, not a broken memory."

Macy looked at her with huge wet eyes.

"Ada, you were in so much pain," she said gently. "You couldn't have known where he was every minute."

My grandmother's mouth went thin.

I took a step forward.

"Then take a test," I said.

Everyone heard it.

"Tomorrow morning. A cheek swab, a clinic of your choosing, I'll pay for it. Every person in this room can be there. If it's mine, I'll sign whatever you want."

Macy stared at me.

"A test," she said. "For my baby. You want me to put my baby through that so you can call me a liar in front of everyone."

"I want the truth."

"I won't," she said, and her voice rose. "I won't do that to him. You'll say anything. You've always been so good at looking innocent."

The doors opened again behind her.

Gordon Oakes walked in with his navy coat over his arm and stopped beside her.

He put a hand on her shoulder and left it there.

"That's enough," he said.

He did not look at her.

He looked at me, from head to foot.

"You've done enough to my family today," he said. "My daughter hasn't stopped shaking. Take your grandmother and your friend and get out of this hall."

"Mr. Oakes, I paid for this hall."

"And you're welcome to the bill," Gordon said. "It's the only thing you ever gave her."

Somebody in the back drew a breath.

Nan stepped around the table.

"Gordon Oakes," she said. "I fed this town's schoolchildren for thirty years. Don't you speak to my boy like that in front of people."

He glanced at her cast.

"Ada," he said, almost kindly. "Go home."

Macy was crying into her hands again.

Gordon steered her out of the doors with his arm around her.

At the threshold she looked back over her shoulder.

It was a quick look, flat and dry, and then she was gone.

My phone buzzed in my jacket.

I took it out because I could not think of anything else to do.

It was the bank.

The notice said that a withdrawal of $38,400 had been made at 2:31 p.m. from our joint savings account.

That was the down payment on the house we were going to buy.

That was eight years of my overtime.

It had been taken out twenty minutes after she walked away from the altar.

I looked at the name on the transaction.

Lydia Oakes.

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