Chapter 4: Tea With the Next Mrs. Draper

The family doctor came at nine and took my blood pressure without meeting my eyes.

He had treated Lawson for chicken pox, and he spoke to Jonas about me as if I were not there.

"Eight weeks and two days," he told Jonas, who stood by the door. "Healthy. Mr. Draper will be pleased."

"I'm in the room, doctor," I said.

"Of course, Mrs. Draper," he said, and he wrote something on his chart.

He left without answering a single question I asked.

Jonas followed him to the stairs and came back with my breakfast tray.

He set it on the table by the window and stood so that his back covered the doorway.

Under the folded napkin was a small gray phone, the cheap kind sold at pharmacies.

"One number in it, and it's mine," he said quietly. "The red button on the left records."

"Mr. Draper has your real phone, so this is the only one that's yours."

I slid it into the pocket of my cardigan.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

"Your father asked me to look after you both," Jonas said. "Eat the eggs, ma'am."

Marissa arrived at two o'clock.

She came up the stairs with a garment bag over one arm and a tailor's tape around her neck.

Behind her, a maid carried a hatbox and would not look at me.

"Annabel, dear, I brought tea," Marissa said. "And I thought we could be girls together."

She said it so warmly that for one stupid second I wanted to sit down and cry on her shoulder.

I sat on the sofa instead, with a throw blanket over my lap and the phone under it.

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