He Was There for Her Baby, Not Mine novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Porch Light

Noelle meets Colette, who fixes her father's porch light and swears there is nothing between her and Dalton. Then Colette mentions the baby Noelle lost, which Dalton never told Noelle he had shared.

I was supposed to stay inside.

That was my own term, and I had made it four hours ago.

But Dalton's mother had put Colette on my father's porch without asking me.

I was not going to hide in the kitchen from a woman holding a baby.

"I'll talk to her," I said.

"Noe, you don't have to," Dalton said.

"I know. Move."

He moved.

My father stood behind me in the doorway with his arms folded.

Colette came up the steps slowly, one hand on the rail.

Up close she was younger than I had pictured, with tired skin and chapped lips.

Arlen was on her hip in a green sleeper, and his cheeks were pink.

"Mrs. Brannigan," she said. "I'm Colette. I'm so sorry about today."

"Noelle."

"Noelle." Her eyes filled right away. "I told Dalton not to come."

"I called because I panicked, and I'm sorry."

"I'd never seen a fever that high, and I thought he would have a seizure."

"Is he all right?"

"The nurse line said fluids and a bath." She laughed shakily. "He's fine. He's been fine since six."

Dalton's mother nodded the whole time.

Colette turned to my father.

"Sir, I brought a pie. I know it's not my place."

"Dalton's mom said your porch light flickers, so I changed the bulb on the way in. I hope that's okay."

My father looked up.

The porch light was steady and yellow, for the first time in a year.

"Huh," my father said. "Thank you."

I saw it land on him. I felt it land on me too, a small mean sting of fairness.

It was hard to hate a woman who had fixed the porch light.

Arlen reached for the railing with one fat hand and gripped it.

His thumb bent back at the first joint, the way mine did.

Plenty of people have that thumb. I thought of it for half a second and let it go.

"He's beautiful," I said, and I meant it.

"Thank you." Colette hugged him closer. "He's all I have."

"Dalton said you were new in town."

"For work. Then the work fell through." She shrugged one shoulder.

"I didn't know anybody. Dalton's crew was hiring at the trailer, and he was so kind."

"He just kept showing up."

"For four months."

"Noe," Dalton said.

"I'm talking to her."

Colette looked at him, then back at me, and wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand.

"I know how it looks," she said. "I know exactly how it looks."

"A woman with no family and a baby, and your husband is the only person who answers the phone."

"He answered it at my shower."

"I know. And I hate that." She said it plainly.

"I told him he should've stayed with you. I told him that on the phone, when he was already in the truck."

I glanced at Dalton.

His shoulders came down an inch, because it was true, or because he wanted it to be.

"There's nothing between us, Noelle," Colette said. "I swear it on Arlen."

"He is the best friend I've got, and he is crazy about you. All he talks about is you."

"What does he say?"

"That you read to the baby every night. That you've painted the nursery twice because the yellow was wrong."

She smiled with her whole wet face.

"That you're the bravest person he knows."

My throat ached.

It was the smoothest thing anyone had said to me all day, and I wanted it to be real.

Behind me, my father had gone quiet.

Inside the door, on the wall of the front hall, hung the family photographs.

Colette's eyes had gone to them while she talked.

They stopped on the one of my brother and me on the dock, squinting in the sun.

She looked at it a moment, and then she looked away.

I did not weigh that. I only thought she was being polite about the house.

"I'll go," Colette said. "I only wanted you to hear it from me. I wanted to look you in the eye."

"Thank you for coming," I said.

Dalton's mother touched my cheek.

"You see, honey? It's only a misunderstanding."

"Please don't," I said.

She took her hand away, surprised.

Colette lifted the carrier handle with her free hand, then paused on the top step.

"One more thing, and then I'll leave you alone." She turned. "Dalton's scared. I think you should know that."

"He's so scared of you losing this one, after the last."

The porch went still.

My father uncrossed his arms.

I had told four people in the world about the baby I lost at nineteen weeks.

Dalton was one of them, and my father was another.

"After the last what?" I said.

Colette's face did not change.

"After you lost the baby," she said gently. "Dalton told me. He tells me everything."

I looked at my husband.

He was staring at the floorboards.

He had not told me one single thing about her in four months, and he had told her about the worst night of my life.

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