Daily Habits of Another Woman novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Bridget's Couch

Willa tells her best friend about the baby, and they notice the note is written as orders; at six in the morning Corin stands outside with a thermos of milk and his mother's car behind him.

Bridget opened her apartment door at one in the morning in flannel pajamas, with flour still in her hair.

It was her night off from the bakery, and she took one look at my face and stepped aside.

"Where's the ring?" she said.

"On the tablet."

"Good place for it."

She pulled me onto the couch and put a blanket around me before I had said anything else.

I handed her my phone with the photos open.

She read the first one with her mouth closed, and the second with her mouth open.

By the fifth she had stopped scrolling and was reading out loud in a flat voice.

"Rocky road when she has cramps. Not vanilla. Bring it to the bed."

"Yes."

"Willa, did he bring you ice cream in bed?"

"Rocky road. Every month."

"I hate this man," Bridget said, "and I used to like him."

She kept going, line by line.

Halfway down she held up one finger.

"Wait. Look at how this is written."

"I know it's awful."

"No, look. 'Don't ask her if she wants it, she never says no.' Corin doesn't write like that."

I leaned over and read it again.

Corin wrote everything in scraps.

Our grocery lists said "eggs, bread, call Mom," and his work notes said "Fri, deck, call back."

He had never in his life written a full sentence to himself.

"These are orders," Bridget said. "Somebody is telling him what to do."

"Nicolette?"

"I don't know. But a man doesn't write himself a note that says 'Push her to eat more.' He writes 'Casa Verde.' Somebody is standing behind him with a clipboard."

I thought about that.

It was almost worse.

If Corin had made the list himself, he was a cheat.

If someone had made it for him, he was a man who would do anything he was told for a woman who cried, and he had been doing it to me for three years.

"It doesn't change what he did," I said.

"Not even a little."

My phone buzzed against her knee.

Fourteen missed calls, all from Corin.

The newest text had arrived while she was reading.

Corin: Nicolette's okay. Come home. I'll warm your milk.

I stared at it.

"He wants to warm your milk," Bridget said.

"The one thing I told him tonight."

She took the phone out of my hand and put it face down on the cushion.

"Okay," she said. "Say the thing you haven't said."

"What thing?"

"You've been holding your coat across your stomach since you came in."

I looked down.

My arm was crossing my middle, and I had not noticed.

"I'm seven weeks," I said.

Bridget did not scream.

She put both hands over her mouth and her eyes filled up.

Then she laughed, and cried, and said "Oh my God" through her fingers.

"Does he know?"

"I found out this morning. I tore up the paper in the kitchen. I was going to tell him over dinner."

"And then you read the note."

"And then I read the note."

She hugged me hard, flour and all.

"Then it's you and me and a bun in the oven," she said. "I'll make a very bad joke about that every day."

"Please don't."

"I'll make a very bad joke every day."

I laughed, and then the laugh turned into the crying I had not done in the kitchen.

She held on until it ran out.

At three the phone buzzed again.

Corin: She's asleep now. I'll be home soon. We can fix this.

At four.

Corin: I'll bring you milk in the morning. Please don't be angry all night.

I sat up very slowly.

"Bridget."

She was half asleep against the cushions. "Hm?"

I held out the screen and then my photos side by side.

He'll bring milk in the morning. Let her be angry tonight. She always comes around.

And on the phone, from Corin's own thumbs, a few hours later: I'll bring you milk in the morning. Please don't be angry all night.

Same milk. Same morning.

Bridget read them both and sat up straight.

"He's reading from a script."

"He's reading from hers."

Neither of us slept after that.

At six the buzzer went.

Bridget got to the window first and moved the blind with one finger.

Down on the sidewalk stood Corin in yesterday's shirt, holding a steel thermos in both hands.

At the curb behind him, with the engine running, sat his mother's white sedan.

Glenda was in the driver's seat, and she had already seen us at the window.

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