Day Seven I Signed It novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Pool
Colin walks out of his anniversary dinner and finds his wife has bet five thousand dollars that he will crawl back in three days; he gives himself seven and learns someone already bet on day seven.
I walked out of our townhouse while eleven of Margo's friends watched, and not one of them told her to come after me.
Margo stayed on the couch with her wine.
She didn't put the glass down.
It was our ninth anniversary, and the dinner she had planned for the two of us had turned into a party for her friends.
On my way through the hall, the newest guest stepped back to let me pass.
He had been standing in front of my father's photograph again, as he had before dessert.
He was the only guest in nine years who had ever asked who the man in the frame was.
"For what it's worth, I'd have left sooner," he said quietly.
I thanked him, and I meant it.
His name was Gavin Roche, and he had joined her circle a year and a half ago.
I had the door half closed behind me when her best friend's voice carried down the steps, bright and easy.
"Colin changed his strategy this year."
"Don't cave too fast, Margo," Reese said. "Make him work for it."
Margo laughed, low and comfortable.
"He can't stay away from me for long," she said. "Give him three days and he'll walk in on his own."
I stood on the front steps with my keys in my hand.
This was the fourth time I had walked out of one of her dinners.
The first three times I was back by the second day, with flowers, and I apologized first.
Her friends had clapped the last time.
An hour earlier, in the hallway, Margo had put her hand on my arm.
"Go cool off," she'd said. "I'll keep them in line."
I sat in my car on the street with the engine off.
My phone buzzed.
There was a group chat called Couples Night that I had been added to six years ago and never left.
I had muted it the first week.
It had two hundred unread messages, and every new one was about me.
Reese had started a pool called COLIN: 72 HOURS.
The entries came in fast.
Forty dollars that I'd be home by Wednesday morning.
Sixty that I'd last until Wednesday night, tops.
Someone had posted a crying-laughing face next to my name.
Then Margo typed, under her own name, in the same chat where she told me every year that her friends were only teasing.
"Five thousand says he's home before Thursday."
Reese answered, "That's the biggest bet this group has ever had."
Margo wrote, "Easy money."
Nine people hit the money-bag emoji.
I read it twice, in case I had made it kinder than it was.
I hadn't.
Margo wasn't joking.
She was betting five thousand dollars of our savings that I was weak.
A new message arrived while I was still looking at it.
It was from Margo, in the chat, written for the others.
"To make sure he cracks first, I gave Gavin a fingerprint on the front door and Colin's spare key. Gavin's staying in the guest room until Colin comes crawling."
Under it, Reese had written, "You're evil."
Margo had written back, "I'm a realist."
I started the car.
I drove to a motel off the highway because it was the first sign I saw, and I paid for a week in advance without deciding to.
The room smelled like carpet cleaner.
I sat on the bed with my coat on and listened to the ice machine in the hall.
Sometime after midnight, I noticed that I wasn't angry.
I was relieved.
For nine years I had been the man who walked out and came back.
My wife had turned that into a game, and she had never once asked what I was walking out of.
A lawyer's number had sat in my phone for a year, and I had never called it.
The next morning, at seven, a photo showed up on Reese's story.
Gavin was lying on my couch in my gray slippers, the ones my mother had given me for Christmas, with his feet on my coffee table.
The caption said, Make yourself at home, they said.
Behind him, in the hall, my father's photograph had been straightened.
I looked at it for a long time.
It was a small thing, and it was mine.
Margo had given him my key and my door and my slippers, and she had done it to win a bet against me.
So I didn't go home.
I took a pen from the motel nightstand, and on the back of the receipt I wrote one number.
Seven.
Margo had given me seventy-two hours to crawl.
I gave myself seven days, to move out of that life and make sure.
If I still felt the same on the seventh day, I would sign.
I scrolled back up through the chat once more, to see how big the pool had grown.
It was at forty-one thousand dollars.
The last entry had been posted at three that morning, before I had written anything on a receipt.
Gavin Roche, ten thousand dollars.
"He signs on day seven."
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