He Invited His Ex-Wife Home, But She Was Here for Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Sunday Brunch

Kaitlyn walks into Helen's brunch alone and puts the proof on the table; Mindy laughs behind her wrist and asks why there is no photo of her in the house.

I slept at a motel off Sprague with the empty wine bottle on the nightstand.

At six in the morning Glen had sent a string of messages.

Every one of them began with my name.

Kaitlyn, I'm sorry about the wine. Kaitlyn, nothing happened. Kaitlyn, please come home so we can talk like adults.

He had not once typed the word Mindy.

At seven Helen called.

I let it ring twice and answered on the third.

"Brunch is at eleven," my mother-in-law said. "You'll be there, and you'll be civil. Mindy is my guest."

"Helen, your son was in a hot tub with his ex-wife."

"Mindy is family. You are a guest in this family, dear, and not the other way around."

She hung up before I could answer.

I stood in the motel bathroom and looked at my face.

Then I washed it, put on the green dress Glen liked least, and drove to the South Hill.

Helen's house has a long oak table that seats ten.

I have eaten at it every Sunday for two years and four months.

My chair is the third on the left, next to the window.

Mindy was sitting in it.

She wore a cream sweater and had her hair down.

Without the steam she looked older than I'd thought, and tired.

Glen sat across from her.

Helen was at the head of the table with her pearls on and a silver coffee pot at her elbow.

Gabe stood by the sideboard with his hands in his pockets.

He did not look at me when I came in.

"Kaitlyn," Helen said. "Sit anywhere."

"That's my chair."

Mindy looked up and smiled, and I saw the front tooth, small and chipped at one corner.

"Oh, is it?" she said. "I had no idea."

She did not move.

"Mindy," Glen said gently.

"Don't," I said. "She can hear me fine."

I stood behind my chair and waited.

The whole table watched me wait.

Mindy finished her coffee, set the cup down, and stood up, taking her time about it.

"All yours," she said. "It's still warm."

I sat down.

Helen cleared her throat.

"Now. Glen has explained everything. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding, and I won't have a scene at my table."

"Glen has explained what?" I said.

"Mindy's flight."

"There was no flight." I turned to the sideboard. "Gabe."

Everyone looked at him.

He took a moment, and then he took his hands out of his pockets.

The scar on his left thumb went white as he closed that hand.

"On Tuesday I was in Glen's kitchen," he said. "He called Mindy and told her to come Saturday, because Kaitlyn worked late."

"Gabriel," Helen said.

"That's what I heard, Mom."

Glen had gone quiet.

He turned the watch on his wrist a full turn.

"I invited her," he said. "Yes. For a hotel, and a ride, and dinner, because she was alone in a city she doesn't know."

"She grew up in Oregon," I said. "It's a few hours away."

"She hasn't lived here in six years."

"You had her in our tub."

"The tub was her idea."

Mindy put a hand to her mouth, and I thought she was going to laugh.

She didn't. She leaned against the sideboard and watched Glen very carefully.

"It was his idea," she said. "But I said yes. I say yes to a lot of things."

Helen set her cup down so hard the saucer rang.

"Mindy, darling, you don't owe anybody in this house an explanation."

"Don't I?"

"You are welcome here as long as you like," Helen said. "Whatever she thinks."

She said the word she with her chin pointed at me.

I had planned to sit through the whole brunch and make them look at me while they ate.

That plan was gone now, and I did not miss it.

I put my napkin on the table.

"I'm going to say this once," I said. "I'm Glen's wife, not a guest. I pay half the mortgage on the house she was drinking in."

Nobody spoke.

"If she needs somewhere to stay, she can pay for a room."

"Kaitlyn, sit," Glen said.

"No."

"You are being very ugly in front of my mother."

In two years and four months, that was the first time he had insulted me out loud.

"Good," I said. "Then I'll be ugly where people can see."

I stood up, and the chair legs scraped the floor.

My coffee was untouched and still hot.

On my way to the door Mindy caught my eye.

She was not smiling now.

She brushed the back of her wrist across her lips, and she said it quietly, so only I could hear.

"Ask him why there isn't one photograph of me in your whole house."

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