He Held Her Son the Night I Lost Ours novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Family Dinner

Willa lays the lease on the table in front of Clark's mother and Tara, a little boy finds the ultrasound in her coat, and Clark does not ask a single question. She clips the divorce papers to the fridge and walks out for London.

My lawyer's courier brought the divorce papers at five.

I put them in my bag and set the table for six.

Sylvia arrived at seven in her pearls.

She looked around my apartment, hung her coat and took the chair at the head of my table.

"Tara, darling, this smells wonderful," she said.

Tara beamed from the stove.

Ollie sat on the rug coloring a dinosaur green. Clark carved the roast without looking at me.

I waited until everyone had a full plate.

Then I took the lease out of my bag, unfolded it and laid it on the tablecloth in front of Clark.

"Signed in June," I said. "Move-in Friday."

Nobody spoke.

Clark looked at the page, and then at Tara.

"It's temporary," he said.

"You told me her lease fell through."

"It did. This is the next place." He set the carving knife down. "I made a promise to my best friend, Willa. You knew that."

Tara's husband had died three years ago, in a car, on a Tuesday.

"I knew you promised to look after them," I said. "I didn't know you meant my bedroom."

Tara's chin shook. "I told him this was too much. I told him you'd hate it."

"Then why is your name on the lease?"

"Because I'm alone," she whispered. "Because I have no one."

Sylvia put her fork down hard.

"That is enough. A widow with a small boy, and you interrogate her at dinner."

"Sylvia, she signed a lease behind my back."

"Her husband helped a family," Sylvia said. "And you should be grateful he has the heart for it. Six years of marriage and you couldn't give him a child of his own."

The room went quiet.

I held on to the edge of the table.

Clark didn't say a word to stop her.

"Willa, look!"

Ollie had gotten up from the rug.

He stood by the door in front of my coat, holding something small and silver in both hands.

"It was in your pocket," he said proudly. "It's a picture of a bean!"

I had hung that coat on the hook by the door when I came in.

Tara crossed the room and took the frame from him gently.

She slid out the ultrasound printout and read the clinic's label.

"Eleven weeks," Tara read aloud. "Oh my God. Willa. You were pregnant?"

Sylvia's face changed.

Clark stared at the frame in Tara's hand.

He didn't reach for it. He didn't ask whose it was.

I stood up.

"I was going to give it to you on Monday night," I said to him. "At the dinner. On our anniversary."

"Willa."

"I started bleeding at nine. I drove myself to the emergency room."

Ollie stopped moving, because the grown-ups had stopped.

"I lost it at the hospital while you were blowing out five candles with someone else's son."

Tara covered her mouth. Real tears this time.

She came toward me with her arms open. "Oh, honey, come here."

"Don't," I said, and she stopped.

Sylvia's hand had gone to her pearls.

"I came home," I said. "I waited up for you. I tried to tell you at three in the morning, and you took a phone call on the balcony."

Sylvia sat very still.

I looked at my husband and waited.

I waited for the question. Which hospital. Was I all right. Who drove me home.

Clark breathed out slowly.

"You should have told me," he said.

That was all.

"I tried to tell you," I said. "Twice."

"Then you should have tried harder."

He did not look surprised. He looked tired.

"Why would you say it like this?" he said. "In front of my mother. In front of a child."

My stomach turned over.

I took the frame out of Tara's hand and put it back in my pocket.

"Ollie," I said, and my voice shook a little. "Can I borrow your magnet?"

He looked at his mother, then ran to the refrigerator.

He peeled the sun with eyelashes off the door and handed me the magnet.

I took the divorce papers out of my bag.

I clipped them to the refrigerator door at eye level, right where the drawing had hung, and I straightened the page until it hung perfectly.

Then I handed the drawing back to Ollie.

"Keep that safe," I told him. "It's a good one."

I picked up my suitcase from beside the door.

"You can sign it tonight or you can sign it in a court," I said. "Dinner's on the table."

Clark finally stood.

"Willa. Where do you think you're going?"

"Out."

"You don't have anywhere to go."

"London," I said, and I closed the door behind me.

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