My Husband Left Me Out of the Christmas I Paid For, So I Left novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Bread Drawer

In Ellie's kitchen Dawn cancels the cabin rent, the propane card and the grocery order and meets Ellie's brother Stian; the next morning Kendra calls and says Clinton told the family Dawn insisted on paying.

At midnight I was sitting at Ellie's kitchen table in Bayfield with my phone and a mug of tea I hadn't touched.

Ellie sat across from me in her flour-dusted apron, because she baked at night and refused to change for anyone.

"Okay," she said. "Show me what you're doing."

I turned the screen toward her.

"This is the January rent," I said. "It's scheduled for the first. Two thousand one hundred dollars."

"And?"

I pressed Cancel.

The app asked whether I was sure.

I pressed Yes before I could think about it.

Ellie put both hands flat on the table. "Did it just let you do that?"

"It's my account."

"It's been your account for seven years, Dawn. That's not the same as it letting you."

Next I opened the propane company.

Years ago, Clinton had told me the company wanted a card from someone with good credit, so the cabin's tank had been filled on mine ever since.

I took the card off the account.

Then I took it off the grocery delivery and the holiday gift service he had set up for his cousins' kids.

Each one asked me to confirm, and each one I confirmed.

By the end my thumb was shaking.

"You're allowed to be scared," Ellie said. "You're not allowed to undo it before breakfast."

"I'm not undoing it."

"Good. Give me the phone."

I handed it over.

She put it in the bread drawer, under a stack of dish towels, and shut the drawer with her hip.

"Rule one," she said. "No Clinton after nine at night. Rule two, you eat something."

"What's rule three?"

"I'll think of it."

The back door opened, and cold air rolled across the floor.

A tall man stepped in with snow on his shoulders and a shovel in one hand.

He stopped when he saw me.

"This is my brother Stian," Ellie said. "He clears the walks, he drives the town plow and he doesn't talk before noon."

"It's twelve-fifteen," Stian said.

"Then he's late to the conversation."

His dark hair had gray at the temples, and his canvas jacket was wet to the elbows.

He looked at the suitcase by the stairs, and then at my face.

"The guest room's made up," he said. "There's an extra blanket in the cedar chest."

"Thank you," I said.

He nodded, set the shovel by the door and went out again without another word.

Ellie waited until the latch clicked.

"He's decided to like you," she whispered. "I can tell. He fixed the heater in your room this morning, and he never fixes anything for a guest."

"I'm still married."

"I said like. I didn't say bring a casserole."

I slept six hours in a bed that smelled like cedar and bread.

At seven in the morning, a phone rang in the kitchen.

It was mine, buzzing inside the bread drawer.

Ellie pulled it out, read the screen and raised her eyebrows.

"Kendra Nordquist," she said. "Does she always call before sunrise?"

"Only when she wants something."

I answered on speaker.

"Dawn!" Kendra's voice came in loud and breathless. "Where are you? Clinton says you ran off."

"I'm at a friend's."

"Well, you need to fix this right now. The propane man is at the cabin and he says the account is shut down. He won't fill the tank without a card."

"It's December, Kendra."

"I know it's December! Mom's in the car crying. Dad's furious. Just put your card back on and we'll sort it out after Christmas."

I looked at Ellie, who mouthed: Don't.

"Ask your brother," I said. "He sets up all the cabin's payments. He can give the man a card."

"Clinton doesn't have that kind of room right now, you know that."

I went still.

"What do you mean he doesn't have room?"

"Nothing. I mean, he's got his own bills. Dawn, you always pay. That's how it works."

Ellie slid a pen across the table and wrote on a napkin: Ask her.

"Kendra," I said. "Why does it work that way?"

There was a long pause on the line, and a truck engine idling behind her.

"Because that's what Clinton told us," she said at last. "He told us you insisted."

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