He Had a Wife I Never Knew, So I Married Her Brother novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Wife

Philippa arrives gracious and offers a check in public. Linnea refuses. In the parking lot Tobias says he sent the lawyer.

Gavin shrugged, and the whole office watched him do it.

"You've been sick every morning for a week, Lin. I'm not blind. I live with you."

"You lived with me."

"I live with you," he said, patiently. "Whatever you think of me today."

He turned to the women at the nearest desks.

"She's pregnant, and she's scared, and she's said some things she doesn't mean. I'm going to take care of her."

Somebody whispered, "Oh my God."

My face went hot.

He had done it in one breath.

He had told my coworkers I was pregnant before I had told my aunt, and he had made himself the patient one.

I picked up the prenatal vitamins and put them in the trash.

"Get out," I said.

"Linnea."

"Get out of my office."

"Ms. Marsden is right," said a woman's voice from the door. "He should."

Everyone turned.

She stood at the end of the aisle in a cream suit, with pearl earrings and a black bob so smooth that it looked cut with a ruler.

She was tall, and she was beautiful, and she was smiling at me with great sympathy.

I knew her before she spoke.

She was the name on the certificate.

"Hello," she said. "I'm Philippa Roswell."

Nobody breathed.

She walked down the aisle on quiet heels and stopped a foot from me.

"I'm so sorry to meet you like this," she said. "I'm Gavin's wife. And I'm so sorry for what he has put you through."

Her voice was low and kind.

It was kinder than I had been ready for.

I felt Marcy's hand find my back.

"I want you to hear it from me," Philippa said, "so that you don't have to wonder. He should have told you. That's his sin, not yours."

"Philippa," Gavin said.

"Be quiet, darling."

She said it lightly.

Gavin was quiet.

Philippa opened her handbag and took out a cream envelope.

"I won't pretend I don't know about the baby. He told me last night. I'd like to help, so I've brought this."

She held it out to me.

Through the paper I could see the edge of a check.

"There's fifty thousand dollars in there," she said. "For the confusion, and for the child's first year, and so that you never have to think about my husband again. All I ask is that we keep this quiet."

Every head in the billing office turned toward me.

Fifty thousand dollars was a down payment on a house.

It was what my house fund would have been if Gavin had not been counting my coupons for three years.

I understood, in a flash, why it was so kind.

She was buying quiet from me in front of thirty witnesses, so that if I refused, I would be the one who looked cruel.

"No," I said.

"Linnea. Take a moment."

"I don't need a moment. No."

"You haven't read the amount."

"I read it."

I took the envelope out of her hand, and I did not look at it.

I put it into Gavin's chest.

"You can have it back," I said. "It's your money, anyway. It's all your money. I paid for the salt."

Someone near the copier made a small sound.

Gavin did not take the envelope.

It slid down his coat and landed on the carpet, and no one picked it up.

"Ms. Marsden," Philippa said, smiling, "I'm only trying to be a decent person."

"Then be one somewhere else."

I picked up my bag.

Marcy picked up hers, though her shift had not ended.

We walked out of the billing office with thirty people watching, and not one of them said a word.

In the elevator Marcy said, "Did you see her face?"

"She smiled the whole time."

"No, after you walked away. For about a second."

"What was it?"

"Like you'd stolen something," said Marcy.

The elevator opened on the lobby.

Philippa was already there.

She had taken the stairs, and she was standing beside the revolving doors with her handbag against her stomach.

She waited until Marcy had gone ahead to get her coat from the desk.

Then she stepped close to me, and she was not smiling anymore.

"You will want that check," she said, very quietly. "Everyone does, by the end. A baby is expensive."

I looked straight at her.

"Then I'll pay for it myself," I said. "I'm good at saving."

Her face did not move.

She turned and walked out through the revolving doors, and I watched her get into the back of a black car.

Marcy came back with my coat.

We went out into the parking lot, and the wind off the river pushed my hair into my mouth.

A man was leaning on the hood of a gray sedan across from the entrance.

He wore a charcoal suit and no coat, and he looked like he had been standing there for an hour.

He looked at me, and he did not look away.

"Ms. Marsden," he said. "I'm Tobias Roswell."

"Philippa's brother?"

"Yes."

He took one step toward me.

"I'm the one who sent the lawyer."

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