My Husband Left Me in Labor to Be My Best Friend's Groom, So I Prepared for His Return novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Back Before You Push
Brennan leaves Emmeline in labor to be best man at his boss's wedding, and she watches the livestream with her newborn as the bride marries him instead.
At ten past six in the morning, my husband put his tuxedo bag over his shoulder and left me in labor.
I was four centimeters dilated and gripping the bed rail.
"I hate this," Brennan said, and squeezed my hand. "Alastair's a wreck and I'm his best man. I'll keep my phone on. I'll be back before you push."
"You told me you'd skip it."
"I know. I wanted to. They say first babies take all day."
The nurse looked at the monitor and said nothing.
Brennan kissed my forehead and was gone before the next contraction reached its peak.
My phone buzzed against the sheet.
It was my best friend since freshman year, who was supposed to be getting her hair done for her own wedding.
She had written: "Breathe, mama. I'll have the photographer send you the first look. Tell that baby to wait for the cake. I love you."
I laughed, and then a contraction folded me in half.
My grandmother Hazel arrived at seven with a bag of peppermints and her good cardigan, ready to stay all day.
"Where's that husband of yours, Emmeline?" she asked.
"Best man."
"Hm," said Hazel, and put a peppermint in my hand.
She stayed. She rubbed my back through every one of them, and she never asked about Brennan again.
My daughter was born at 11:52 that morning, red and furious and perfect.
Brennan texted at noon: "Stuck in photos. Kiss her for me. Back soon."
He texted again at one: "Alastair needs me for the toasts."
At two he sent a heart.
I held my daughter against my chest and watched the door.
The house we lived in was mine. My grandmother had left it to me years before I met Brennan, and his name was on nothing in it.
I had never thought that mattered until that afternoon.
At 2:40 a message arrived from Alastair Rainsford, the groom, whom I had met maybe six times.
It said: "Watch. Don't call him."
Below it was a link to the wedding livestream.
I almost didn't open it.
Hazel looked at my face and set down her peppermints.
The screen showed St. Anselm's, the whole church full, white roses along every pew.
Three hundred people sat facing the altar.
In the front pew, Alastair sat with his phone in his hand, calm, watching the aisle.
At the altar stood Brennan in his tuxedo.
He wasn't beside the groom's empty place. He stood center, where the groom goes.
The organ started, and my best friend, Bridget, came down the aisle in a white dress I had helped her pick in March.
She was smiling at Brennan.
She stopped beside him and took both his hands.
The priest leaned in and said something. Bridget shook her head.
Then she turned to face the church, and the microphone picked her up clearly.
"I'm sorry, Alastair," she said. "I can't marry you. I'm marrying Brennan."
Nobody screamed. Somebody in the back said, "What?" and somebody else laughed, the short sound people make when they think it's a joke.
Alastair didn't stand up.
Brennan said, "I do."
My daughter was three hours old.
Hazel took the phone out of my hand and turned the sound off, and I took it back.
I watched him put a ring on her finger.
I watched the whole church watch it.
On the livestream, a counter in the corner said four thousand people were viewing.
The nurse, standing at the foot of my bed, said very softly, "Oh, honey."
I didn't cry. I don't know why I didn't.
I opened the app that ran the front door of my house.
The keypad lock had Brennan's code, Brennan's fingerprint and a key fob I had bought him for his birthday.
I deleted all three.
Then I set a new code that only Hazel and I would know.
"What are you doing?" Hazel asked.
"Preparing," I said.
I pressed the call button and the nurse came in.
"My husband is Brennan Montgomery," I told her. "He is not to come into this room. Not today, not tomorrow, not with flowers."
She wrote it on my chart without asking why.
"Good," Hazel said, and unwrapped a peppermint for herself.
My phone buzzed again.
It was Alastair, from the front pew of the church he had just been left in.
He had written: "Is your divorce final?"
I looked at my daughter, asleep on my chest with one fist against my collarbone.
Brennan and I had never filed anything.
I typed: "No."
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