My Husband's Secret in the Tent, He Had Another Fiancée There novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Lifetime Membership

Diane tells Samantha to wait, and a bank statement shows Samantha paid the lodge membership for Waylon and Shanna.

Waylon pushed the phone across the table, and I let it sit there.

"Diane," I said. "I'm here."

"Samantha, honey," Diane said. "Let's not do this on the phone."

Her voice was soft and sure, the voice she used on waiters.

"Waylon has been under so much strain," she said. "Men get restless. It passes. You're a smart girl, so be smart now. Don't sign anything. Come to dinner Sunday and we'll talk it through as a family."

"Sunday," I said.

"Yes, dear."

"For two years you've told me not to come on Sundays," I said. "You said I looked exhausted, and I should sleep in."

The line went quiet for one breath.

"Well, you should rest," Diane said. "But this is different."

Waylon watched me from across the table with his mouth set.

I noticed he was not looking at the phone. He was looking at me, waiting to see which way I would go.

"I'll think about it," I said.

I ended the call.

Waylon picked up the envelope, looked at it, and set it down again without opening it.

"You're being dramatic," he said. "Give it a week. You'll see how stupid this is."

"I've seen enough," I said.

I went upstairs and pulled a suitcase out of the hall closet.

I packed work clothes, my laptop, my passport and the folder from the filing cabinet that held our tax returns.

I did not take the toaster, the couch or the dishes.

He followed me into the bedroom and stood in the doorway.

"Where do you think you're going?" he said.

"A hotel."

"You're not leaving. Not like this."

I walked past him and carried the suitcase down the stairs.

He caught up to me in the driveway with his hand around my upper arm, tight enough to turn me.

"Samantha, listen to me."

"Let go," I said.

"Not until you stop this."

"Let go of her," a voice called.

Our neighbor from across the street was standing at the end of his lawn with a garden hose in one hand and his phone held up in the other.

"I'm filming, Waylon," he said. "Take your hand off her."

Waylon let go as if I were hot.

"We're just talking, sir," he said, and he smiled at the phone.

"It doesn't look like talking," the neighbor said.

I put the suitcase in the trunk and shut it.

"Thank you," I said to the neighbor.

He nodded and kept the phone up until I pulled out.

I checked into a business hotel near my office, the kind with a desk lamp bolted to the wall.

My phone buzzed before I had taken my coat off.

It was Waylon: Mom is making your favorite for Sunday. Don't be stubborn.

My favorite was a pot roast I had once said I liked, nine years ago, to be polite.

I did not answer, and I saved the text in a folder with the recording.

I sat on the bed with my laptop and opened the joint credit card statement, the one I paid every month and never read.

I had trusted Waylon to pay for the little things, and for six years I had not asked what they were.

I scrolled back through the months.

Gas. Groceries. A garden center. A gym he never visited.

Then, fourteen months ago, a single large charge.

Pine Hollow Lodge, four thousand eight hundred dollars.

The note beside it said: Lifetime Membership.

Below it, every month for the last fourteen months, a smaller charge of three hundred and eighty dollars for site fees.

I added it up. It came to more than ten thousand dollars.

It had all gone onto my card, the one my paychecks covered, the one I thought of as the grocery card.

I clicked into the full record for the big charge to see who had signed up.

The membership holders were listed on one line.

Waylon Casto and Shanna Merrill.

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