For Our 10th Anniversary, My Husband Gave Me a Green Dress and My Sister a Baby novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Green Dress
On their tenth anniversary Lena receives the green dress she once told Travis to send if he ever wanted to leave, finds her pregnant half-sister in his arms, takes off her ring, and is ordered to be downstairs for the photos.
The white box came at ten that morning, while I was setting two champagne flutes on our dining table.
The courier made me sign for it on a tablet.
Travis's favorite short ribs were already in the oven, and the vows I had written for our next ten years were folded inside my purse.
I had expected flowers.
Under the tissue paper lay green silk.
My hands went cold.
A card sat on top of the dress, in Travis's blocky handwriting: Ten years, Lee. Always yours. T.
I knew exactly what the color meant, because I was the one who had given it that meaning.
When I was eight, my father's girlfriend came to our house in a green dress.
She sat at my mother's kitchen table and smiled while my father explained that his cheating was partly my mother's fault.
My mother stood at the sink with her back to the room and never said a word.
The little recorder she used for grocery lists sat on the counter by the bread box.
When the woman finally left, my mother put it back in the drawer and dried every dish.
Two weeks before our wedding, I told Travis all of it.
I told him my worst fear was waking up one day married to my father.
"If you ever want someone else," I said, "don't make me wait while you decide. Send me a green dress. I'll understand, and I'll go."
He took my face in both hands.
"You will never get that dress from me."
That promise lasted ten years.
My phone showed one text from him, sent at nine.
Sponsor meeting at the Ellicott first, then the reception. Home by eight. Love you.
I sat with the dress until four o'clock.
Travis signed whatever his assistant slid in front of him. I had watched it for years. An assistant could have ordered this and he might not even have looked.
It was a pathetic hope, and I held onto it anyway.
I put the dress back in its box and drove to the hotel.
The woman at the front desk knew me from last year's gala.
"Mrs. Holloway! The Stags have the hospitality suite on fourteen."
The suite door stood open a few inches.
I heard a woman laugh inside.
I knew that laugh. I had heard it at every Thanksgiving of my life.
Shelby was my half-sister, seven years younger than me, and the daughter of the woman in the green dress.
Travis had always praised me for staying close to her.
"You're the only decent person in your family," he used to say.
I pushed the door open.
Shelby stood by the window in a cream dress, one hand resting on the small round curve of her stomach.
Travis stood behind her.
His hand covered hers.
None of us moved.
Then Travis bent and kissed her temple.
It wasn't a slip or a drunken mistake. It was slow and easy, the kiss of two people who had already pictured their mornings together.
Shelby saw me first.
Her smile dropped, but she did not step out of his arms.
Travis turned his head.
"Lee."
Only the people who loved me called me that.
The box slid against my hip, and I caught it before it fell.
An ultrasound picture lay on the table beside a bottle of sparkling cider and two flutes.
I couldn't get a full breath.
"How far along?" I asked.
Shelby looked at Travis, waiting for him to answer for her.
"Lee, this isn't the place."
"How far?"
"Fourteen weeks," Shelby said.
Fourteen weeks ago, in the parking lot of our fertility clinic, Travis had kissed my knuckles after our fifth failed transfer.
He had told me we were enough, just the two of us.
I looked at his hand on my sister's stomach.
"Is it yours?"
Travis finally let go of her.
"Yes."
My knees went soft, and I grabbed the back of a chair.
Shelby moved closer to him. Even now, she expected him to shield her from me.
I set the box on the table and folded back the tissue.
The green silk caught the light from the window.
Shelby looked down at it.
Something crossed her face, too fast for me to name.
Travis went very still.
That scared me more than confusion would have.
It looked like recognition.
I laid his card on top of the dress.
"You remembered."
For one moment he looked afraid.
Then his face smoothed into the patient look he wore whenever he thought I was too emotional to follow something simple.
"Lee, listen. I didn't choose that dress."
I looked at Shelby's hand over the baby I had spent five years failing to give him.
"Then who did?"
He didn't answer.
So I worked my wedding ring over my knuckle, set it on the ultrasound picture, and let it sit there on his child's face.
Travis stared at the ring.
"Pick that up," he said quietly. "We have photos with the sponsors at seven thirty, and you will be downstairs."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend