He Thought I'd Forget novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Elevator
Leona meets her husband in a hospital elevator with his pregnant fellow, hears him say she'll forget it all by morning, asks for a divorce, and crosses the hall with her son to ask a neighbor for a ride to the sister Byron says is dead.
Everyone at the hospital knew Dr. Byron Aldane's wife couldn't remember yesterday.
So when the elevator doors opened and my husband was standing inside with his hand on a pregnant woman's back, I just pushed the stroller in and faced the doors.
He took his hand off her.
She was blond and glossy, maybe six months along, with a hospital lanyard resting on her bump.
"Do you know her, Dr. Aldane?" she asked.
Byron looked at me for a long second.
"She was a patient," he said. "Years ago."
The woman leaned around him to see me better.
Then she smiled with all her teeth.
"Oh my God. Is that her? Patient L?"
"Alexis," he said quietly.
"She really doesn't know you." Alexis laughed and rubbed her belly in a slow circle. "That's kind of beautiful, actually."
My son kicked his feet in the stroller and shouted at the buttons.
I watched the numbers drop and didn't say a word.
When the doors opened at the lobby, I was the first one out.
His footsteps followed me past the gift shop, soft and careful.
"Leona."
I turned with the polite face I'd been told to use on strangers.
"Do you remember what happened today?" he asked.
"I can't even remember yesterday," I said.
His shoulders came down an inch.
He crouched by the stroller and tugged Davey's sock straight.
"Hey, buddy. Be good for Mommy."
Then he stood, kissed my forehead, and told me to take my evening pill.
I pushed the stroller home through Shadyside without looking back.
In our condo I put Davey in his playpen, lifted the stroller seat, and took out the blue notebook.
Three years of my handwriting filled it, one night at a time.
I turned to a clean page and wrote down every word from the elevator.
Her name. Her lanyard. Her hand on her belly.
At the bottom I wrote, "He is having a baby with someone else."
Under that I wrote, "If he doesn't want us anymore, this marriage is over."
Byron came home at seven with Thai food and his hospital smile.
He set the bag on the counter and loosened his tie.
"How was your day, sweetheart?"
"The baby she's carrying is yours," I said. "Isn't it?"
His hand stopped on the tie.
He stared at me.
"Honey, what are you talking about?"
"Alexis," I said. "In the elevator. She's pregnant with your child."
His face went through three expressions.
Then it settled back into the gentle one.
He took a carton out of the bag and peeled the lid off.
"So what if she is?" he said. "You won't remember any of this when you wake up tomorrow."
The room went very quiet.
Davey banged a plastic cup against the playpen bars.
"Once Alexis has the baby, I'll bring it home," Byron said. "You'll raise it as yours. You'll never know the difference."
"That's your child with her," I said. "Not mine."
"Lee, don't be unreasonable."
He reached for my arm.
I jerked it back so hard my elbow hit the cabinet.
His hand stayed in the air between us.
"You wanted another baby," he said, in the patient voice he used on residents. "But the risk is too high. We don't even know yet if Davey will turn out like you."
I looked at my son.
He was chewing his cup and laughing at nothing.
"If you were so ashamed of me," I said, "you never should have married me."
"Enough."
He came around the counter and kept coming until my back hit the wall.
"Why is everything so hard for you? I explain, and you won't listen. You're hysterical, Leona. What happened to the wife I used to have?"
My eyes burned.
He saw it and softened right on cue.
He pulled me against his chest and stroked my hair.
"There she is," he murmured. "It's okay. It'll all be gone by morning."
I pushed out of his arms and went to the hall closet.
The suitcase was already packed.
I had packed it eleven days ago and checked it every night.
I rolled it into the kitchen.
"Byron, we're done," I said. "I want a divorce. I'm taking Davey."
He laughed.
It wasn't a mean laugh. It was worse than mean. It was fond.
"Take him where? With what? You can't sign a lease, Lee. I sign for you. The court gave me your money and your signature six years ago. You can't even open a bank account."
He went to the cabinet and shook a white pill into his palm.
He filled a glass of water and held them both out.
"Take this, and tomorrow we'll have a nice day. You won't even know we fought."
I took the pill.
I put it in my mouth and drank the whole glass while he watched.
He kissed my forehead again.
"I've got night rounds," he said. "Get some sleep."
He picked up his keys and his phone, and he was smiling at the screen before the door shut behind him.
I waited a full minute.
Then I spat the pill into my hand.
It was soft at the edges from my tongue.
I went to the pantry and took down the empty formula tin from the top shelf.
I opened the lid.
Forty-two white pills lay inside.
I dropped in number forty-three.
He thought I'd wake up tomorrow in love with him.
I hadn't forgotten a single day in six weeks.
I put the blue book in my bag with the tin and a stack of birthday cards from his desk drawer.
Every card was addressed to me and stamped "Return to Sender" in Byron's square printing.
Every one was signed "I'm not giving up, Lee. Love, Jeanine."
I lifted Davey onto my hip, took the suitcase, and walked across the hall.
I knocked on 4C.
The door opened, and the man from my book stood there in a flannel shirt with sawdust on his sleeve.
Brown beard. Kind brown eyes. Exactly how I'd described him.
He smiled the way you smile at a lost neighbor.
"Hi," he said. "I'm Clark. I live right across from..."
"I know who you are, Clark," I said. "I've introduced myself to you about four hundred times. I'm done doing that."
His smile slipped.
He looked at the suitcase, then at my face.
"You remember me," he said.
"I need you to drive me to my sister's tonight," I said. "And I need you not to tell my husband."
"Your sister."
"Jeanine. She lives in Bellevue."
I shifted Davey higher on my hip.
"My husband tells me every morning that she's dead."
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