He Left My Fever for His Ex, So I Took Our Daughter novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Declined

Tobin shows up at Britt's with roses, Ingrid shows up with soup, and Leah's cards stop working.

Tobin found Britt's building before dark.

I was on her couch with a blanket over my knees and Maisie asleep on my chest when the buzzer went.

Britt looked at the little screen by the door and said, "Your husband brought a bouquet."

"Don't let him up."

"I wasn't going to."

She went down anyway, in her scrubs, with her arms folded.

I stood at the window and watched from four floors up.

Tobin stood on the front steps with white roses held against his chest.

Two of Britt's neighbors carried groceries past him and slowed down to look.

I put Maisie in the crib corner Britt had made from two laundry baskets, and I went down too.

The lobby was small and had a glass door. Anyone passing on the street could see in.

"Leah." Tobin held out the roses. "Please. Five minutes."

"You have until the elevator closes."

"I made a mistake."

"You made a choice," I said. "I was on the kitchen floor and you were across the river."

He glanced at the neighbors, then lowered his voice. "Can we not do this here?"

"You kissed my forehead," I said, loud enough for the stairwell to hear.

"I had a fever of 104 and you kissed my forehead and went to your ex-wife's apartment."

A man with a bag of oranges stopped on the stairs.

Tobin's face went blotchy. "It was a pipe. She had water coming through the ceiling."

"Then why did you lie to me about the office?"

He opened his mouth and nothing came out.

"Because you knew I'd say no," I said. "And you'd have gone anyway."

"I had to go."

"Why?"

He looked at the roses, then at the floor, then at the folder tucked under his arm again.

He carried it everywhere.

He had carried it on every late night for two years, and he had never once brought home flowers.

"It's complicated," he said.

"Try the short version."

"She needs me for a few things. It's work. It's not what you think."

Britt snorted, and I almost did too.

Then the glass door opened behind him.

"There you both are."

Ingrid came in out of the cold with a thermos in one hand and a paper bag in the other.

She was pale and polished, with her white-blonde hair in a low knot and a wool coat buttoned to the chin.

She walked in and set her things down without asking.

She also looked worried.

"Leah, sweetheart." She set the bag on the radiator.

"I didn't know if you'd eaten. It's chicken and rice, and the broth is the kind you can keep down."

The neighbors on the stairs stared.

I didn't take it. "How did you know I'd be here?"

"Tobin said Britt's. And I wanted to see how Maisie was."

She touched my arm, and her hand was warm.

"You scared me. I'm so glad you're okay."

It was the kindest thing anyone had said to me all day.

It came from the one person I didn't trust to say it.

"You called the ambulance," I said.

"Of course I did. I wasn't going to leave a baby alone with her mother on the floor."

"Thank you."

"Don't." She shook her head. "It was nothing. Please tell me you'll let Tobin help."

"He helped when it counted," Britt said.

Ingrid didn't flinch. "I know. He was with me. It's my fault, I should have told him to go home."

She turned to Tobin. "Go home, Toby."

"I will."

"Tonight."

"I said I will."

He said it fast, without arguing.

Then Ingrid turned back to me with wide, solicitous eyes, and for a second I thought I'd misjudged her.

"If you need anything," she said. "Anything at all."

She left with Tobin one step behind her.

He didn't look at me again.

Britt locked the glass door.

"That was creepy," she said.

"She was nice."

"She was perfect. Nobody's perfect after one night."

I took the bag upstairs anyway, because the broth smelled like the one my mother used to make, and my hands were still shaking.

The doctor had written me a prescription for the antibiotics. Britt had a pharmacy two blocks away that stayed open until nine.

I put my coat on over my sweatshirt and left Maisie with Britt.

The pharmacist took my card and ran it twice.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. It's declined."

"Try it again."

"I did, twice. It says the account was closed this afternoon."

I took out the other card. The family one, the one Tobin had given me when Maisie was born.

Declined.

My phone buzzed against the counter.

It was a notification from our phone plan. "Account holder Tobin Halvorsen has removed you from the family plan."

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