The Wife Isn't Me novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Apartment

Beth finds Philippa's father waiting in her kitchen with a $2 million offer, refuses it and takes her papers, and loses her job by lunchtime.

I read Oscar's text three times.

Then I turned my phone face down on Trish's coffee table and didn't answer it.

"Already done," Trish said. "What's already done?"

"The form. The plan. Me."

"You're not done. You're on my couch eating my kid's goldfish crackers."

I didn't sleep much.

At four in the morning I made a list on the back of a pizza menu.

Passport. Birth certificate. Social Security card.

Every prenatal scan. Every lab result. The paper copy of my chart from my first OB, before Oscar moved me to Lowther.

All of it was in a fireproof box in the hall closet of the Harbor East apartment.

The apartment Oscar paid for.

The building Philippa said her father owned.

"We go early," Trish said, pulling on jeans under her scrub top. "Six. Before the rich people wake up."

Her neighbor took her son to school.

We parked in the garage under my building at five fifty-two.

My car was still in my space, a ten-year-old Honda with a car seat I'd installed myself in February.

The elevator still worked. My key still turned.

The apartment smelled like coffee.

I didn't drink coffee. I hadn't for seven months.

A man was sitting at my kitchen island.

He was tall and thin, with silver hair combed straight back and rimless glasses.

Charcoal three-piece suit. A signet ring on his little finger.

He was drinking out of my favorite mug, the one that said WORLD'S OKAYEST REGISTRAR.

"Ms. Fairweather," he said. "Good morning. You're up early. So am I."

Trish stepped in front of me without a word.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Edward Lowther." He didn't look at her. He looked at me. "Please sit down. You shouldn't be standing so long at thirty weeks."

"How do you know how far along I am?"

He smiled.

"I know your blood type, Ms. Fairweather. I know a great deal."

I didn't sit.

There was a leather folder on the island beside the mug.

He opened it and turned it toward me with one finger.

"A gestational surrogacy agreement. Standard terms. My daughter and her husband as intended parents. You as carrier."

"I'm not a carrier. I'm the mother."

"You're a lovely young woman who has had a very confusing pregnancy." He tapped a line near the top. "Note the date."

It was dated July of last year.

Before I was even pregnant.

"You want me to sign something that says I agreed to this before it happened."

"I want you to be compensated, which is more than most women in your position are offered." He set a cashier's check on top of the folder. "Two million dollars. You sign today, you deliver at Lowther, and you never have to worry about anything again."

Trish made a sound.

I looked at the check.

Two million dollars was more than I'd earn in my whole life filing other people's babies.

"And my daughter?"

"Will be raised a Wentworth. With every advantage. By two parents who are married to each other." He folded his hands. "You'll be free to start over. Young. Unencumbered."

Unencumbered.

The baby kicked hard under my ribs.

"No," I said.

He nodded slowly.

"You'll want time to think."

"I don't need time. No."

"Ms. Fairweather, I don't think you understand what declining means."

"I understand you're sitting in my kitchen drinking from my mug."

I walked past him to the hall closet.

The fireproof box was on the top shelf, where I'd left it.

I lifted it down.

My hands were steady. I made sure of that.

Trish held the canvas tote open and I emptied the box into it, item by item, right there in front of him.

Passport.

Birth certificate.

Ultrasound photos in their little paper sleeve.

The chart from my first OB, every page stapled.

Edward Lowther watched the whole thing without getting up.

"Those are copies of records," he said. "Records can be amended."

"Not by you."

"Records are amended every day, Ms. Fairweather. You of all people should know that."

I zipped the tote.

Then I took my WORLD'S OKAYEST REGISTRAR mug out of his hand, poured his coffee into the sink and put the mug in the tote too.

Trish actually clapped. Once.

"Keep the apartment," I told him. "Keep the check. I'm keeping my daughter."

We walked out.

He didn't follow.

He didn't have to raise his voice to make the hair on my arms stand up.

In the garage, Trish took my keys.

"I'm driving your car to my place," she said. "You're driving mine. Nobody's getting a tracker on anything while I'm alive."

"You watch too much TV."

"I watch exactly enough TV."

I didn't go back to her couch.

I drove to Mercy General, because it was Wednesday and I had a shift, and because I needed one normal thing.

I needed my desk, my worksheets, my vending machine pretzels.

I needed to fill out forms that told the truth.

I walked into the staff entrance at seven forty-five.

I pressed my badge to the reader.

The light blinked red.

I tried again. Red.

The security guard I'd said good morning to every day for six years came out from behind his desk, looking at the floor.

"I'm sorry, Beth. HR called down an hour ago."

"Called down about what?"

"You're on administrative leave. Effective today." He finally looked at me. "They said a major donor filed a complaint."

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