In The Storm, My Husband Locked Me Out And Chose Her novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Wood Is Wood

Leander and Lorna arrive at dawn to take her home; the neighbor stacks firewood and does not leave, and then Leander's mother threatens to take the baby.

Leander's car came down the harbor road at seven the next morning, and Lorna was in my seat again.

The power had been out since midnight.

Maeve and I were in her kitchen with a camp lantern and a pot of tea she had made on the gas stove.

I had slept in my sister's bed in her old college sweatshirt, with the baby kicking at my ribs until two.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Maeve said at the window.

She put down her mug and went to the door in her scrubs.

I followed her out onto the porch, one hand under my belly.

The rain had thinned to a gray drizzle, and the bay behind the house was flat and gray.

Leander got out of the car first.

He was in his navy coat, shaved and calm.

Lorna came around the hood with a paper bag and a thermos.

"Gwendolyn," she said. "Oh, honey, look at you."

She put her arms around me before I could step back.

She smelled like vanilla and the inside of his car.

"I brought dry things," she said into my hair. "Maternity leggings, wool socks, the soft cardigans you like. He's been sick over it all night. Haven't you, Leander?"

"I was upset," Leander said.

He said it to the porch rail.

"Upset," Maeve said. "He was upset. I'm going to need a minute."

"Maeve." Leander kept his voice level. "This is between my wife and me."

"Your wife slept in my bed because you froze her bank card at an airport."

"I'll unfreeze it the moment she's in the car."

He turned to me.

"Gwen, there's a video. It's been shared two million times since midnight. My mother's phone hasn't stopped."

"I know," I said. "I've seen the comments."

"Then you know it needs to come down. Say it was a misunderstanding. Say you were tired and I was only following the plan for the evening."

"There was no plan, Leander. You locked the door."

"Because you were late."

"I was not late by my phone."

Lorna touched my sleeve.

"Nobody's going to say it was fair," she said gently. "He knows he went too far. But it was a joke that got out of hand, Gwendolyn. You know how he is."

I looked at her hand on my arm.

For three years I had thought she was the only person in that family who was kind to me.

This morning I could not make myself lean into her hand.

"I'm not taking the video down," I said. "I didn't post it. A stranger did."

"Then you'll ask her to."

"No."

Leander's jaw moved.

"Get in the car, Gwendolyn."

"No."

"You are eight months pregnant, you are staying in a house with no heat, and you are making a scene for people with cameras."

"Seven and a half months," Maeve said. "And the house has a woodstove."

A truck door slammed across the road.

A man was coming up the gravel with an armload of split firewood, a gray wool sweater, and a black beard that needed trimming.

He did not look at any of us.

He walked up the porch steps, set the wood in the crate by the door, and went back down for another armload.

"Orin," Maeve said, and her whole face changed. "You didn't have to."

"Power's out down the whole shore," he said. "Wood's wood."

He came back up with the second load and stacked that too.

When he had finished, he did not leave.

He leaned against the post at the top of the steps with his arms folded.

He was a head taller than Leander.

"Who's this?" Leander said.

"The neighbor," Orin said.

He said nothing else.

Leander looked at him, and at Maeve, and at me.

I watched him work out that nobody was going to hand me over.

"Fine," he said.

He put his hand out toward my elbow.

I stepped back, and my heel caught the edge of the doormat.

Orin moved a half step and Maeve's hand shot out, and between the two of them I did not fall.

Leander's hand dropped.

"You'll be home by the weekend," he said. "Because where else do you have to go?"

"This is where I'm going," I said.

He walked down the steps, and Lorna followed him, holding the empty thermos.

At the car she looked back at me once and mouthed: I'm so sorry.

The car drove away up the harbor road.

I let out a long unsteady laugh.

"He really thought I'd get in," I said.

"Men like that always do," Maeve said. "Orin, this is my sister Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn, he lobsters and he has opinions about my gutters."

"They're bad gutters," Orin said.

He met my eyes for a second.

His were brown and steady, and he nodded to me once.

Then my phone rang in my cardigan pocket, with a number I did not know.

"Gwendolyn," a woman said. "This is Eleanor."

Leander's mother had never once called me by my first name without a sigh in front of it.

"If you do not come home today," she said, "your child will be raised in the Prescott house. My lawyers have already drafted what is needed."

She hung up before I could answer.

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