My Sister Stole My Husband novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Her Mother's Terms

Her mother arrives that evening on Alexis's side and, as their father's guardian, tells Maeve to sit beside Waylon at his company dinner on Saturday or lose her father's visits.

Maeve walked along the Dorchester shore for two hours with the carnations still in her fist.

When she came back, the apartment was quiet and the bedroom door stood open.

Waylon and Alexis were gone.

They had left the wine glasses where they were, and the fish had gone warm on the counter.

Maeve threw the fish in the trash, and then the carnations on top of it.

She stripped the bed down to the mattress and stuffed the sheets into a garbage bag.

She took the pillowcase with the dark hairs on it and put that in too.

Then she opened the closet and started on Waylon's suits.

There were nine of them, every one bought after she'd paid for the MBA.

She folded the first suit into a black bag.

She was halfway through the third when the buzzer rang.

It rang twice, then a long third time, and Maeve knew who it was.

Her mother came up the stairs in her good wool coat, holding her handbag in front of her.

She did not say hello.

"What have you done to your sister?"

Maeve stood in the doorway with a suit over her arm. "I haven't done anything to her yet."

"She's in my car crying so hard she can't breathe."

"Is she?"

"Don't use that voice with me." Her mother stepped inside and looked at the black bags. "Is that Waylon's things? Maeve, you're being cruel."

"They were in my bed, Mom."

"I know what they were doing."

Maeve went very still.

"You know?"

Her mother's hand tightened on the strap of her bag. "Alexis called me from the car. Of course I know now."

Maeve kept her eyes on her mother's face and said nothing.

"Alexis is not built for this," her mother went on. "She's soft. She falls for people too hard, and she doesn't think."

"She didn't think for how long?"

"Maeve."

"I'm asking how long."

"I don't know the details."

"Then I'll ask you something you do know." Maeve set the suit down on the arm of the sofa. "This morning you told me not to rush home. And Alexis said you told her I'd be at work until six."

Her mother blinked once.

"Alexis asked when you'd be out of the house," she said. "I'm your mother. I know your schedule. I said what I always say."

"Why did she need to know?"

"To drop off a casserole. For your anniversary." Her mother's voice rose. "Do you hear how that sounds? You're making your own mother a villain over a casserole."

There was no casserole in the apartment.

Maeve decided not to say so.

She looked down at her left hand, at the thin gold band she had worn for ten years.

It came off easily.

She had expected it to hurt.

She walked across the room and put the ring into her mother's palm.

"What is that for?"

"For Alexis," Maeve said. "She can have all of it."

Her mother stared at the ring, and the color rose in her cheeks.

"You can't mean that. He's about to be a vice president. His company has a dinner on Saturday for the executives and their wives. Everybody will be there."

"Then Alexis can go."

"Alexis is the reason people are going to talk."

"Good."

"His boss believes in marriage, Maeve. The man gives speeches about it. If Waylon arrives without a wife, he loses the promotion before anybody has the chance to be kind about it."

"That sounds like his problem."

"It's this family's problem." Her mother put the ring in her coat pocket without looking at it. "You'll go. You'll sit next to him, you'll smile, and afterwards the two of you can handle this quietly."

"I won't."

"You will, honey."

"Why?"

Her mother stopped fussing with her coat.

She looked at Maeve for a long moment, and when she spoke again the warmth had gone out of her voice.

"Because your father is my husband, and I am his legal guardian."

Maeve felt the floor shift under her feet.

"Harbor House sends me every form," her mother said. "I decide who is on his visitor list and who isn't. I've never been unfair to you about it."

"You wouldn't."

"I hope I won't have to." Her mother picked up her bag. "Saturday, at seven, at the hotel on the harbor. Wear the green dress. Sit beside Waylon as his wife."

"Or what?"

"Or the next time you drive to Harbor House, the nurse at the desk will have a note from me with your name on it."

She went to the door.

On the landing she turned around, and for one moment she looked almost sorry.

"I'm only asking for one night, Maeve."

Then she went down the stairs, and the street door banged below.

Maeve stood in her stripped bedroom with three black bags of her husband's suits at her feet.

Her father no longer knew what year it was.

But every Sunday he knew her face, and he asked whether she had eaten.

She picked up the next suit and finished the bag.

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