I Carried His Baby, He Played Husband to Her novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Dare
Beth hears her husband agree to marry his first love for a day, goes home to his lie, and calls a lawyer.
I had been pregnant for five weeks when my husband said yes to marrying his first love for a day.
I heard him say it through a closed door at his club.
Three pregnancy tests were in my purse, next to a pair of white baby socks.
All three showed two lines.
On the other side of the door, Whitney Ames laughed.
"Be my husband for twenty-four hours, Cory," she said. "That's my dare."
My hand stopped on the brass handle.
It was the yearly dare night, and a dozen of Cory's oldest friends were in the private room.
Whitney had started the tradition fifteen years ago.
She picked the dare, and Cory had until midnight the next day to finish it.
He had never once said no to her.
At our first anniversary dinner she moved the place cards and sat between us for the whole meal.
One year she made him wear a shirt with her name on it all day.
Last year she dared him to introduce her as the woman he should have married.
The whole table laughed, Cory too.
Every time I told him it hurt, he kissed my forehead and said, "It's April Fool's, Beth. Don't make it a thing."
I had spent five years trying to believe him.
I had come tonight because of what was in my purse.
That morning I had been twelve days late, so I took one test, and then I sat on the bathroom floor and cried.
We had done four years of injections, procedures and negative results.
Four months ago we had put the last of the medication in a cabinet and shut it.
Cory had held me that night and told me we were enough.
So I took a second test, then a third, and by noon I had booked a blood test for the morning and bought the smallest socks I had ever seen.
They were for our anniversary dinner on Saturday.
I had planned to see Cory for ten minutes here and go home.
"A full April Fool's wedding," Whitney said. "The chapel at Willow Creek. Vows, rings, photos, dinner and the honeymoon suite."
Someone whistled.
"And for those twenty-four hours, no calls to Beth."
The room roared.
I waited for Cory to shut it down.
He had kissed my forehead that morning and reminded me about our reservation.
"Come on, Cory," Whitney said. "Don't tell me marriage made you boring."
A chair scraped back.
Then my husband laughed. "What time?"
The room roared again.
"You're serious?" Whitney asked.
"It's a dare. Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because you have a wife," one of his friends said.
I stood very still and waited for Cory to remember me.
"Every time a cycle failed, Beth apologized to me," Cory said. "She thinks I'm a saint for staying."
His voice came through the door easily.
"Trust me, she needs this marriage a lot more than I do."
Four years of needles.
Every night I had cried into his shirt after another negative.
He had taken the worst years of our marriage and turned them into proof that I would never leave.
"So that's a yes," Whitney said. "I just sent you the booking link. Sign your name to confirm."
There was a soft chime, then the tap of a thumb on a phone.
"Done," Cory said.
Glasses clinked.
Someone asked where to rent a suit that fit by tomorrow.
I let go of the handle and walked down the hall.
In the elevator I pressed the lobby button.
My phone buzzed before the doors shut.
[Party's running late. Don't wait up.]
He had agreed to marry another woman a minute ago, and he was already lying to me.
Then: [Love you.]
I typed back: [Have fun. See you at home.]
Cory came in a little before eleven with a bouquet of white roses, the same flowers I had carried at our wedding.
I was at the kitchen table.
He kissed my forehead. "Sorry I'm late."
"What was this year's dare?"
His thumb stopped on his belt buckle.
Then he smiled. "Stay off my phone for twenty-four hours."
"Can you manage that?"
"For one day? Easily."
He took the roses to the sink, and I let him.
He had always opened the clinic's letters before I could, read me the numbers at this table, and filed them himself in the blue folder.
I had never questioned that either.
I lay awake that night with his arm across me and the baby socks in the nightstand, two feet from his hand.
In the morning he made pancakes and told me about a client dinner at Willow Creek that might run late, so he had booked a room.
I asked if Whitney was going.
He laughed. "Why would she be at a client dinner?"
I did not say what I knew.
If he knew I had heard, he would cancel, or hide it better, and then he would say it meant nothing.
When he went to shower his phone lit up beside the sink.
[Wear the suit from your real wedding. Bring the silver cuff links. And wear your ring, I want the real one.]
I photographed the screen.
Then I opened the restaurant email for Saturday.
Table for two, seven thirty, with a note I had added: pregnancy announcement, private dessert.
I pressed Cancel Reservation.
I called Rhonda Pendergast, the lawyer who had handled my sister's divorce.
She answered on the fourth ring.
"I need to leave my husband," I said. "Without him knowing."
Upstairs, Cory was humming.
"I want to file for divorce."
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