My Husband Left Me in Labor to Be My Best Friend's Groom, So I Prepared for His Return novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Witness

Alastair offers to keep the bigamy quiet until Emmeline picks the day, she refuses to be his weapon, and the joint account is already empty when Bridget texts.

Brennan did not leave quietly, and Alastair did not raise his voice.

From the nursery window I watched Alastair stop on the porch steps and say something short.

Brennan answered with both hands moving.

Alastair said one more thing, and Brennan stopped moving.

Then Brennan loaded four boxes and a garment bag into his trunk himself, in the porch light, with the neighbors' curtains twitching up and down Alder Lane.

He drove away without looking at my window.

Hazel opened the front door to Alastair with her pan still under her arm.

"You can come in," she said. "The pan stays."

At eleven that night, Alastair sat at my kitchen table with a cup of Hazel's decaf in front of him and the folder closed beside it.

I stood at the counter with my daughter in a wrap against my chest, because she only slept if I was upright.

"Say it," I said.

He opened the folder and slid out a single page.

It was a marriage license. Brennan Montgomery, Bridget Ormsby, signed that afternoon, and under it, the witness line: Alastair J. Rainsford.

"Why would you sign that?" I asked.

"Because Brennan asked me to stand up for him, and Bridget needed a witness who wouldn't question it."

He said it without any apology.

"So I did what I was asked."

"You sat in the front pew and watched her marry him."

"Yes."

"You were calm."

"I'm calm when I'm angry." He said it flatly.

"I found out this morning, from Bridget's planner."

"What did she say?"

"She called at seven and asked if I minded a change of names. I said I'd think about it."

I looked at him for a while.

"You didn't say no."

"I wanted to see what they'd do in front of a church."

My daughter sneezed against my collarbone and Alastair's whole face softened for half a second.

Then it was gone.

"Here is what I'm offering," he said. "You haven't been divorced."

"No."

"So Brennan is still married to you, and his marriage to Bridget is a crime."

He turned the cup a quarter turn on its saucer.

"If we say nothing, they'll keep acting married. They'll sign a lease, buy furniture and tell everyone they know."

"And the longer they do it?"

"The worse it lands."

"And then?"

"And then I call a reporter and a district attorney, on whatever day you pick."

"So I'd be your weapon."

"You'd be the woman he left in labor."

I put my hand over the back of my daughter's head.

"No," I said.

Alastair didn't blink. "No?"

"I'm not a button you press when you're ready."

I kept my voice low for the baby.

"I'll do this myself, my way, in my time. If you want to watch, you can watch."

Hazel snorted from the doorway, where she had been pretending to wipe a counter.

Alastair looked from me to her and back again.

"All right," he said slowly. "You run it. I'll keep quiet."

"You'll keep quiet because I said so."

"Because you said so."

His tone told me he didn't expect it to last. I decided to prove him wrong.

My phone buzzed on the counter.

I picked it up one-handed, expecting Brennan.

It was a bank alert.

"Account ending 4417, withdrawal, 41,000 dollars. Branch transaction, 9:02 a.m."

I read the time twice.

At 9:02 that morning I had been pushing, and my husband had been zipping himself into a tuxedo.

"He emptied the joint account," I said.

Alastair sat very still. "How much was in it?"

"Forty-one thousand dollars. Everything that was left."

"I'll cover it. I'll have my lawyers..."

"Don't."

I turned the phone around and let him see the screen. Under the alert was a second line.

The balance read 0.00.

"It's gone," Alastair said. "Emmeline, I'm sorry."

"It's his idea of everything."

I set the phone down.

In January, Brennan had started asking, in a nice voice, whether I'd ever put his name on the house.

That Tuesday I went to my bank.

I moved every dollar of my own into an account with Hazel's name beside mine.

I hadn't told anyone.

I had never told myself why.

Hazel set her dish towel down.

"I told her to," she said, to Alastair. "I never liked how nice he got whenever she was tired."

Alastair looked at the two of us for a long moment.

"You prepared for this," he said.

"I prepared for a lot of things," I said. "I didn't know he'd do it on the day she was born."

My phone buzzed again.

The name on the screen made my stomach turn.

Bridget.

She had written: "He lied to both of us. Please, Emmeline. I need to see you."

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