I Carried His Baby, He Played Husband to Her novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Family Future Fund

Her blood test is perfect, and the joint fund that was meant for the baby has paid for Whitney's wedding and her company.

I drove to my blood test alone.

Cory had left for Willow Creek an hour earlier.

He wore the charcoal suit from our wedding, his ring and the silver cuff links I had fastened on his wrists myself.

He still called it a client dinner.

I waited until his car turned the corner before I got in mine.

The nurse drew one tube and taped cotton inside my elbow.

"The doctor will call you in when the result is back," she said.

I sat in the waiting room and did not count the minutes.

For four years, waiting for a result had meant getting ready to hear no.

My phone buzzed with a notification from Facebook.

Whitney had posted a photo.

It showed two coffee cups in the holders of Cory's car.

Her hand lay over his on the console, and his wedding ring showed under her fingers.

The caption said: [Back with my first partner. Some dares always lead you home.]

She had tagged Willow Creek.

I read the word home twice.

For fifteen years she had called it a joke whenever I objected.

Now she was showing everyone he belonged next to her.

I locked my phone and went in when the nurse called my name.

"Your numbers are doubling just the way they should, Beth," the doctor said, and slid the printout across the desk.

"The pregnancy looks healthy."

For a few seconds there was only my child.

I forgot Willow Creek and Whitney's hand on his ring.

The doctor turned to her screen. "Do you want me to add Cory to your portal so he gets the updates? He must be thrilled."

I thought of the photo.

"No," I said. "Keep everything private, please."

In the hallway my phone buzzed again.

[Family Future Fund: balance is below your alert limit.]

I stopped walking.

Nothing should have come out of that account.

Our last treatment cycle was on hold, and nothing had been bought for a baby from it.

I opened the banking app.

The newest charge read Willow Creek Hotel: ceremony package and honeymoon suite.

The next was a dinner for forty.

The third was a wedding photographer.

I looked at the charges, then at Whitney's photo on my screen.

Cory had not only said yes to her dare.

He had paid for it out of our child's money.

The Family Future Fund was Cory's, and he ran it himself.

"This is our baby's money," he had always told me.

Three weeks ago I asked to spend a little of it on a crib.

"We have to protect the fund," he said.

He had not wanted to spend it on a crib for our child.

He had spent it on a honeymoon suite for Whitney.

I sat in my car and scrolled back through the old activity.

If he had used it once, I needed to know if it was the first time.

It was not.

There were transfers to Ames Events, Whitney's company.

Some said consulting, and some said nothing.

One of the dates made my thumb stop.

It was the day of my last failed procedure.

That night Cory had held an ice pack against my hip while I cried.

"We'll try again," he had whispered. "That's why we built the fund."

Two hours later he had sent money from it to Whitney.

While I lay in hospital beds and cried over negative tests, my husband was moving our baby's future into his first love's business.

I did not add up the total.

I took screenshots of every line instead.

At Rhonda's office she listened to all of it with her glasses pushed up on her head.

"Do not move a dollar of the shared money," she said. "Copy every record and keep the originals where they are."

"Why?"

"Because if you move it, he gets to say you did."

I went home, which I still thought of as home, while the house was empty.

I saved each statement to a drive he had never seen and emailed copies to Rhonda.

Then I called my sister.

"Marcy, I'm pregnant," I said. "And I'm leaving Cory."

She sucked in a breath. "Tell me what you need."

"Don't tell Mom and Dad yet. And I need our aunt's empty apartment."

"I have the key. I'll get you at six."

Before I hung up I checked Whitney's post again.

Cory had commented: [Just like old times.]

He had agreed not to call me for twenty-four hours.

It seemed that rule only covered his wife.

I sent Marcy the address of the hotel.

[Marcy: Six. But why that hotel? Where are we going?]

I looked around the house I had spent five years building with a man who was trying on his wedding suit for someone else.

I typed back: [To watch how my marriage ends.]

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