He Gave Our Family Speech With His Ex, So I Took the Mic novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Mic
Holly takes her daughter to Family Day and finds her husband on stage with his ex and her son, giving a speech about family; she takes the microphone and walks out, and his text says the account is frozen and the locks are changed.
Derek stood at the school podium, in the tie I'd straightened that morning.
He thanked his family for making him the man he was.
The family he pointed at was not me.
I was standing in the gym doorway with our daughter's hand in mine.
Three hundred parents sat on folding chairs under a banner that said Family Day.
On the stage, in the middle of the row of honored guests, sat Gwen.
She had a little boy on her lap and her hand on my husband's chair.
Derek had told me that morning he had a business meeting at the office.
"Nobody important goes to these school things, Hol," he'd said, kissing the top of my head. "Take a morning for yourself. We'll do the zoo Saturday."
He had said we shouldn't go either, so June wouldn't feel left out.
Our daughter had gone quiet over her cereal, and I had watched her draw a small sad face on a napkin.
So I'd called the dental office, taken the morning, and brought her myself.
I had paid for the paper crown on her head.
Now Derek leaned into the microphone, smiling at the audience.
"A man's career is built on his family," he said. "Harmony at home is what gets me through the hardest days at work."
He looked at Gwen when he said harmony.
She smiled back at him, warm and easy, and straightened the collar of the boy's shirt.
I knew Gwen.
She was the PTA co-chair, the woman who stayed late to fold programs and remembered everyone's coffee order.
She was also, Derek had told me once, ancient history from college. "She's lovely, though. You'd like her."
I did like her.
That was the worst part of standing there.
Beside me, June let go of my hand and waved both arms over her head.
"Hi, Eli!" she called.
On the stage, the little boy waved back.
I thought: he must be in her class.
I didn't think anything else.
In the front row, a man in a gray suit sat with his legs crossed and his name badge turned over on his lapel.
When Derek finished, he stood and started to clap.
The whole gym followed him.
"And now," Derek said, "I'd like the audience to meet the people who make it all worth it."
He held out his hand.
Gwen stood, lifted the boy onto her hip, and took it.
They stood together in the stage lights, three of them, matching in blue.
Somebody near the front said, "Oh, they're so sweet."
I looked at the side door.
Jill, who ran the school's front office and had been my best friend for nine years, was standing there with her phone raised.
She had seen it too.
She looked at me over the top of the screen and gave me one hard nod.
I said to June, "Wait right here for me, baby."
"Is it my surprise?" June asked, bouncing.
"I don't know yet," I said.
So I walked up the aisle.
Heads turned as I passed them.
I climbed the three steps to the stage in my work flats.
Derek saw me and his smile stayed exactly where it was.
"Holly," he said, low, with his shoulder turned away from the microphone. "Not here."
I took the microphone out of his hand.
It was warm from his fingers.
"Good morning," I said. My voice came out loud and steady through the speakers. "I'm Holly Kane. I'm the wife of the man who just thanked his family."
Nobody moved.
"This morning he told me he had a business meeting," I said. "He said nobody important goes to these. He told me to keep our daughter home."
I pointed down the aisle.
June stood alone in her paper crown, small and bright under the lights.
"That's his daughter," I said. "She's six. She came anyway."
Gwen's smile finally slipped.
"Holly, honey," she said quietly, "let's not do this in front of the children."
She said it so gently that a woman in the second row nodded.
Derek reached for the microphone.
I stepped back out of his reach.
"Derek," I said, "tell them who your family is."
He opened his mouth.
For the first time in nine years, my husband had nothing to say.
In the front row, the man in the gray suit had stopped clapping.
I could feel every phone in the gym pointing at us.
I set the microphone on the podium.
"Thank you for coming," I said to the room. "Enjoy the rest of the morning."
Then I walked down the three steps and across the gym floor to my daughter.
I picked her up, crown and all.
"Mommy," June whispered into my neck. "Was that the surprise?"
"No, baby," I said. "Let's go home."
I carried her out through the double doors and into the cold parking lot.
I had her buckled into the car seat before my hands started shaking.
My phone buzzed on the dashboard.
It was Derek.
I read the whole text twice before I understood it.
"I've frozen the joint account. The locks at the house are being changed this afternoon. You did this to yourself."
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