My Husband Left Me in Labor for My Best Friend and Her Baby novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Room 4B

Corrine has her father wheel her to Summer's room and hears why her best friend did it. When she refuses to lie for Summer, she comes back to find a stranger waiting in her chair.

I did not sleep, and the bank alert stayed lit on my phone.

Fifty-eight thousand four hundred dollars, sent to a title company at 6:12 in the morning.

I called the bank at eight and was told the transfer was complete and could not be pulled back.

That was my grandmother's gift, and Brent had been on the account since our wedding.

I asked the agent to flag it and email me the record of who sent the wire, and she said it would take until Monday.

Then I asked my father to take me to 4B.

"You can barely sit up," Norm said.

"I can sit in a chair, and you can push it."

He didn't argue.

A nurse found us a wheelchair and tucked a pillow against my stomach so the stitches wouldn't pull.

Posy slept in the nursery, and I did not let myself think about leaving her.

I had spent twelve years calling that woman my best friend.

I wanted to see her face when I asked her one question.

The door of 4B was propped open with a rubber wedge.

Summer lay in the bed with her hair brushed and her lips pink.

Balloons floated over the window.

A blue one said "It's a Boy" and a smaller one said "Daddy's Little Man."

She saw me and smiled, and then the smile fell off her face all at once.

"Cor," she said. "Oh my God. You shouldn't be up."

"I wanted to see you."

"Let me ring for someone. You look pale."

"Don't."

Norm parked the chair at the end of the bed and stood behind me with his arms folded.

The baby slept in a clear bassinet beside her.

He was wrapped in a plain hospital blanket.

I looked for the fox and didn't see it.

"I'm so sorry," Summer said.

She had tears in her eyes before she'd finished a sentence, which was a talent of hers.

"I never wanted you to find out like this. I was going to tell you after the baby, after everything settled."

"Tell me what?"

"That Brent and I... that it just happened. It was never supposed to."

"It was three years."

"It felt like it just happened."

"You posted an anniversary every June."

She wiped her face with the heel of her hand.

"I hid them from you. That's how much I didn't want to hurt you."

I waited for her to hear herself.

She didn't.

"You sat on my couch at my baby shower," I said.

"I know."

"You held my hand."

"I know, Cor."

"Why?"

She looked at the balloons.

"You always had everything," she said, quietly. "The good house and the easy marriage and your dad. Everybody loves you without you even trying."

"I had a husband who left me on a gurney."

"He was never happy with you. He told me."

"He told you."

"He tells me everything."

She said it like it was a gift she was handing me.

I looked at the bassinet again.

The baby's hair was thick and black and stood up off his head like a brush.

Summer was blond.

Brent was blond.

I thought, for no reason I could name, that it was a lot of hair.

"Does he have a name?" I asked.

"Not yet. Brent wants to pick it."

"I see."

"Cor, I need to ask you for something."

"No."

"It's important. Please. Nobody has to find out about my situation with Ward. If it gets to him, it will wreck everything."

"Your situation."

"He's at sea until the spring, and I told Brent we've been separated for a year. If Ward hears..."

"You told Brent you were separated."

"We were basically separated."

"He's your husband, Summer."

"He's a voice on a screen once a week."

Her face was desperate now, and I saw how she had looked on the other side of every lie she'd told me.

"I'll go to the hospital's social worker and make Brent sign anything you want," she said. "You can keep the house. Just keep this quiet."

"Keep it quiet."

"For my baby."

Norm moved a half step forward.

I put a hand on the arm of his jacket.

"Ward texted me last night," I said.

Summer went white from the forehead down.

"What did you say?"

"I haven't answered him."

"Cor, please..."

"I'm not going to lie for you," I said. "That's the difference between you and me."

I turned the chair myself, with both hands on the wheels.

Norm took the handles from me at the door.

"Corrine!" she cried. "He'll destroy me! You know what he's like!"

I did not know what Ward was like.

I had never met him.

In twelve years, Summer had shown me exactly one photo of her husband, taken from far away, with his face turned toward a ship.

"Dad," I said in the hallway. "Take me back. I need to feed Posy and lie down."

"You okay?"

"I'm angry. I think that's what this feels like."

He pushed me around the corner and past the nurses' station.

The door to my room was shut.

I had left it open.

Norm reached for the handle, but I put my hand out first and pushed it open myself.

There was a man in the chair by the window.

He wore a gray ship's jacket with salt stains across the shoulders, and a duffel bag sat at his feet.

His hair was thick and black and stood up off his head like a brush.

He stood when he saw me.

"Corrine Lawton?" he said. "I'm Ward Delaney. I got the first flight I could."

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