Her Husband's Favorite Guest novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Four Hundred Pages

Lydia copies her notebook and voice memos overnight, then finds a label email telling her cousin to sign a solo deal for Lydia's song.

I drove home and ate our anniversary dinner alone.

The candles had burned down to puddles on the table.

I put the ultrasound envelope next to my plate and looked at the two small shapes until the food went cold.

Then I made a decision.

I would not tell Brandon about the twins tonight.

Not until I knew who I was telling.

He came in after one in the morning, smelling of bar smoke and somebody else's perfume.

"You waited up," he said, and smiled the smile that used to work on me.

"It's our anniversary," I said.

"I know. I'm sorry about the slideshow. The label's video guy cut it fast, and I didn't catch the gaps."

That was the first lie of the night.

His own name had been on the approval stamp.

"Which gaps?" I asked.

"The photos. Lydia, nobody did it on purpose."

"Piper was on your lap."

"It was a bit. She's family. People love a family band."

He dropped his jacket over the chair and went to the sink for water.

"Anyway, I need your notebook," he said. "The green one."

I did not move. "Why?"

"Piper wants to run through the new bridge tomorrow. She says she can't read your handwriting on her phone pictures."

"She has been carrying that notebook for weeks."

"She left it at the venue. Just tell me where yours is."

He had said "yours," and there was only one.

I had filled every page of it myself.

"It's in my bag," I said. "I'll bring it to rehearsal Friday."

"Tomorrow is better."

"Friday, Brandon."

He looked at me for a second too long.

Then he laughed and rubbed his eyes. "Fine. You're tired. Come to bed."

I said I would be there in a minute.

He was asleep before I finished the dishes.

I stood in the doorway of our bedroom and listened to him breathe.

He had never once slept badly in five years.

I went to the living room, opened my bag, and took out the green notebook.

Four hundred and eleven pages of lyrics in my own handwriting, every song he had ever sung.

Some had dates in the corner.

I laid it flat on the coffee table and photographed each page with my phone.

It took more than an hour.

Then I opened my voice memos.

I had been singing new lines into my phone since before our wedding.

There were six hundred and four recordings, each stamped with a day and a time.

In one of them I was twenty-six, laughing, humming a tune over a bad connection, and Brandon's voice asked from far away, "Is that the one about the basement?"

I made three copies of everything.

One went to my email, one to a cloud folder under my mother's maiden name, and one to a small drive I zipped into my winter boot.

It was nearly four.

I was not sure why I was being careful.

I only knew that a man who removes his wife from a slideshow has done it a hundred smaller times first.

I went to the study to turn off the lamp.

Brandon's laptop was open on his desk, glowing.

He never left it open.

The screen showed an email, and the top line made me stop.

From a label address, sent at 11:40 that night, to Piper Lund.

Copied: Brandon Keats.

Subject: Solo contract. Sign by Friday.

Below it, the first line of the message read: Piper, as discussed, the attached deal covers your catalogue and your debut single, "Basement Light."

I read the line three times.

My cousin did not have a catalogue.

She had been in the band for eighteen months.

I scrolled up and saw he had forwarded it to himself an hour ago, with one line added at the top.

It said: She says she'll sign tonight if you do what she asked.

I did not touch another key.

I put the lamp out, leaving the laptop exactly as I had found it, and stood in the dark.

In the bedroom, my husband turned over in his sleep and said her name.

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