After My Miscarriage, My Husband Locked Me Out novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Shelby

I did not invite her in.

Roz did it for me.

"Kitchen," she said, and picked up the blue suitcase before Shelby could argue.

The new deadbolt was in the door.

Roz's husband had gone home to their daughter.

The only light in my kitchen was the one over the stove.

Shelby sat at the table where I had eaten six years of breakfasts.

She did not take off her coat.

Roz leaned against the counter with her arms folded and her reading glasses on her head.

"You can talk," I said. "I'll listen. That's all I'm promising."

"That's more than I'd give me." Shelby's voice was thin. "Can I say it in order?"

"Go ahead."

"In March, Chandler told me the marriage was over. He said you two lived like roommates and that you were cold.

"He said it was his house too and that he'd get it in the settlement."

"It was never his house."

"I know that now." She looked at her hands. "I believed him."

"He said we'd move to Sewickley before the baby came."

"I picked out a nursery paint."

Roz made a small noise in her throat.

I kept my face where it was.

"And the soup?"

"That was Gwendolyn." Shelby swallowed. "She said I was the one you'd let in. She wanted to know if you were sleeping, and when you went back to work, and who came by. I texted her every night."

"You sat on my couch."

"The week after, when you couldn't stop shaking. I held a blanket around you." Her eyes filled. "I told myself that part was real. I don't know if I'm allowed to."

I had a hundred things I wanted to say.

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