April Joke, Permanent Scar novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Door
Hannah hears her husband accept a dare to marry his first love for twenty-four hours, records it, and learns the honeymoon deposit came out of their baby fund.
Sheridan Vandever's laugh carried through the closed door of the club's private room.
"Twenty-four hours," she said. "You marry me, with a real chapel and real vows. That's your dare."
I stopped with my hand on the brass handle.
My purse held three pregnancy tests and a pair of white baby socks, the smallest I had ever seen.
I was five weeks pregnant, and I had driven across town to tell my husband.
Inside the room, a dozen of Dylan's oldest friends whistled and pounded the table.
It was their annual dare night, held every first of April.
Sheridan had started it fifteen years ago, when she and Dylan were nineteen and dating.
Every year she chose the dare, and in fifteen years Dylan had never once said no.
One spring he spent a whole Saturday as her chauffeur.
Last year he stood up at my work party and introduced her as the woman he should have married.
Everyone laughed, and so did I, because I had learned that laughing was cheaper than arguing.
When I told him afterward that it stung, he kissed my forehead and said, "It's April Fool's, Hannah. Don't take everything so seriously."
I had spent five years trying to take it lightly.
Sheridan had always been kind to me about it.
She hugged me at our wedding, and every year she told me to skip dare night and stay home with a book, because it was a silly old ritual and I would be bored.
This morning I had taken the first test after I realized I was twelve days late.
Two pink lines appeared, and I sat on the bathroom floor and cried.
We had spent four years on injections, procedures and negative results.
Dylan took his clinic calls in the car every time, and every time he came back in and said, "Fine. Nothing to discuss."
Four months ago we boxed up the last of the medicine and shut it in a cabinet.
He held me that night and told me we were enough.
Today I took a second test, then a third, and booked a blood draw for the morning.
Then I bought the baby socks.
I was going to give them to him at our anniversary dinner on Saturday, with a dessert the restaurant had promised to bring out.
Tonight I had only wanted to see his face for a minute before I went home.
"And for the whole twenty-four hours," Sheridan added, "no calls to Hannah."
The room roared.
I waited for Dylan to put a stop to it.
That morning he had kissed my forehead and reminded me about our dinner reservation.
He had no idea what was in my purse.
"Come on, Dylan," Sheridan said. "Don't tell me marriage made you boring."
A chair scraped the floor.
Then my husband laughed.
"What time?" he asked.
I took out my phone and started a voice recording.
"You're serious?" Sheridan said, sounding thrilled.
"It's a dare," Dylan said. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because you have a wife," Seth Reed said.
For one moment I waited for Dylan to remember me.
Instead he said, "Every time a round failed, Hannah apologized to me. She's so grateful I stayed that she'd forgive me anything."
His voice came through the door.
"She's not going anywhere," he said. "She needs me a lot more than I need her."
I stood there with the phone in my hand.
Four years of treatment, and every night of it I had cried against his shoulder.
He had taken the worst years of our marriage and used them as proof that I could never leave.
"Then it's settled," Sheridan said. "I just sent you the booking link. Put your name on it."
A phone chimed.
Fingers tapped a screen.
"Done," Dylan said.
Glasses clinked, and the friends started arguing about where to rent him a suit.
I pressed stop and saved the recording.
So I stepped back from the door.
The white socks were in my bag, next to the tests, and I had pictured this night so differently.
I had pictured surprise, and tears, and him pulling me into his arms to ask if it was really true.
I walked down the hall and pressed the elevator button.
My phone buzzed before the doors opened.
[Stuck at the club with the guys. Don't wait up tonight.]
He had agreed to marry another woman a minute ago, and he was already lying to me.
A second message arrived.
[Love you.]
The elevator opened, and I stepped in.
Through the closing gap I saw the private room one last time.
Sheridan stood beside Dylan with her hand on his sleeve while his friends toasted them.
I typed back: [Have fun. I'll see you at home.]
The doors shut.
Dylan believed he had said yes to a joke that would be over by tomorrow midnight.
He believed I would be waiting for him in our kitchen the way I always was.
In the lobby my phone buzzed again, and this time it was the bank.
[Charge: Willow Creek Chapel and Inn, $4,800.00. Account: Baby.]
I had named that account myself, four years ago, the day we opened it to pay for treatment.
It held every dollar we had saved for one last try.
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