My Husband Kept Sending Packages to Ex, So I Filed for Divorce novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Default Address
On Thanksgiving morning Keith admits the package went to Shana's again; Becca finds 41 orders to an apartment on her own route, takes her mother's gift back from Shana's hall table, announces the divorce at dinner, and finds their route fund drained to Shana.
We were supposed to spend Thanksgiving at my parents' house this year.
I had the pumpkin pie in both hands and my keys between my teeth.
Keith stopped in the doorway, looking at his phone.
"Oh, I forgot to change the address. The package went to Shana's again."
I went still.
I took the keys out of my mouth.
"Again?"
"The serving dish for your mom." He waved the phone like it was nothing. "I'll grab it from her next week. It's fine."
I set the pie down on the hall table.
Then I held out my hand.
He looked at it for a second too long before he gave me the phone.
The shopping app was still open.
I tapped Account, then Addresses.
The default address was Shana Yost, 1180 Larkspur Court, Apartment 3B, Kettering.
Our house was second on the list.
He'd labeled it "Home (old)."
I tapped Orders.
Forty-one of them, going back fourteen months.
A cream cashmere robe. Perfume. Suede boots. A red stand mixer.
I'd asked for that mixer last Christmas.
He'd said it was too expensive for something I'd use twice.
"Bec, she's had a hard year," Keith said. "Her ex left her with nothing. It's a few things."
"Forty-one things."
I knew that address.
I drive Route 14 for a living, five days a week, Kettering and south Dayton.
1180 Larkspur Court is stop 112.
Third floor, no elevator, a doormat that says "Hello, Gorgeous" in gold letters.
I had carried boxes up those stairs all year.
I had photographed them on that mat for the scanner, one after another.
Yesterday I'd set down a box with a picture of a pie plate on the side.
I'd thought, somebody's mom is going to love that.
"Get in the car," I said.
"We're already late for your mother."
"We're making a stop first. It's on my route."
He talked the whole way there.
He said Shana was an old friend.
He said I was being dramatic on a holiday.
He said, "Please don't make a scene in front of her."
I parked in the visitor spot I use every weekday.
I knew the door code.
I knew which stair creaked.
The gold letters on the mat were right where I'd left them.
I knocked the way I always knock, two hard raps.
Shana opened the door in the cream cashmere robe.
I knew that robe. I'd carried it up in the rain in March.
Her hair was in loose waves and her nails were fresh.
She looked past me and smiled.
"Keith! Happy Thanksgiving."
Then she looked at my brown jacket and my ponytail and my boots.
"Oh. You brought the delivery girl."
"Shana," Keith said. "This is my wife."
"I know who she is." She leaned on the door frame. "She's here every day. She left my perfume on the mat in the snow once."
"You told me you didn't know where she lived," I said to Keith.
He didn't answer.
Shana tilted her head at me.
"He said you'd never notice. You don't notice much, do you, sweetie? You carried every one of them up here yourself."
Behind her, on the hall table, sat the box with the pie plate on the side.
Next to it was a red stand mixer, still with the tags on.
I walked past her into the apartment.
"Excuse me," Shana said. "That was delivered to me."
"I know. I delivered it."
I picked up the pie plate box and tucked it under my arm.
"You can't just walk in here and take my things."
"It's my mother's," I said. "Her name's on the gift card inside."
I didn't look at the mixer again.
I walked back out past both of them and down the creaky stair.
Keith followed me down all three flights.
"Bec, come on. Let's just go to your parents' and talk about this tonight."
I got in the driver's seat and locked the doors.
He knocked on the window.
I rolled it down two inches.
"Get a ride from her," I said. "She's got your address."
I left him standing on the curb in his good quarter-zip.
In the mirror, Shana was at her window upstairs, laughing into her phone.
My father was carving the turkey when I walked in.
My mother came out of the kitchen with her oven mitts still on.
"Where's Keith?"
I put the box on the table in front of her chair.
"Happy Thanksgiving, Mom. I'm divorcing Keith."
The knife stopped.
My aunt stopped pouring the gravy.
My mother took off one oven mitt, then the other.
She opened the box and lifted out the pie plate. It was blue, with little white wheat stalks painted around the edge.
"Well," she said. "It's very pretty."
"It went to his ex-girlfriend first."
My father set the knife down.
"Do you want me to go get him?"
"No, Dad. He has a ride."
My mother put the pie plate in the middle of the table.
Then she pulled out the chair next to hers.
"Sit, Becca," she said. "You're staying the night."
Nobody said his name again through dinner.
My nephew asked if he could have Keith's drumstick, and my father said yes before anyone else could answer.
After the dishes, I sat on my old bed with my phone.
Norma Gerber owns my route, and she's retiring on December 31.
She'd promised to sell it to me if I brought her my half by December 15.
Mitch Wendt drives Route 15 next to mine, and he'd been sniffing around it all month.
For three years, Keith and I had put every bonus and every tax refund into one savings account.
We called it the route fund.
It was $38,400 the last time I looked.
I wanted to move my half somewhere he couldn't touch it tonight.
I opened the bank app.
Route Fund. Balance: $0.00.
One transfer, November 20, for $38,400.
To Shana Yost.
The memo line said, "For the little one."
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