My Wife's Secret Son Isn't Mine novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Tuition for Our Son
At Sunday lunch a transfer lands on Caleb's phone with a note that says tuition for our son, and his nephew asks Lydia if it is his school money; that night a text from D tells Lydia not to let him talk to Willa.
My phone buzzed in the middle of my mother's grace.
I never look at it at her table.
It buzzed twice, so I peeked under the edge of the tablecloth.
It was a bank alert, a deposit of $26,400 from Lydia Overholt.
Under the amount, the transfer note read, "Tuition for our son."
I read it twice.
Lydia and I do not have a son.
On our wedding day, before the cake was cut, my wife asked me for one thing.
She never wanted children, because she was afraid of the pain and of the whole idea.
I loved her, so I said yes.
Then I had a vasectomy so she would never have to worry.
My brother Dane drove me to the clinic and sat in the waiting room with a golf magazine.
He told the nurse I was the bravest man in Ohio.
That was five years ago.
"Amen," said my mother, Agnes, and everybody reached for the food.
Across the table, Lydia was passing the rolls to Willa.
She had her hair down, the way she always wore it, even in that hot kitchen.
I set my phone beside my plate with the screen up.
"Lyd," I said. "Why did you send me twenty-six thousand dollars?"
The rolls stopped moving.
"The note says, 'Tuition for our son.'"
I tried to laugh.
"I think the bank wants to know which son."
Nobody laughed with me.
At the far end of the table, my nephew Archie looked up from his napkin boat.
He is six and he misses nothing.
"Aunt Lyd," he said, "is that my school money?"
The kitchen went so quiet I could hear the refrigerator.
Lydia's face drained, and her fork stayed halfway to her mouth.
My brother Dane was the first to move.
He put his hand flat on the table and laughed, easy and warm.
It was the laugh he uses when a customer is about to walk off his lot.
"Buddy, go wash your hands. Grown-up talk."
"But I didn't touch anything."
"Wash them anyway, champ."
Archie slid off his chair.
He looked at Lydia the whole way down the hall.
My wife found her voice.
"It's a work thing," she said. "A coworker set up a tuition fund for her kid, and I tapped the wrong name."
She pressed her napkin to her mouth.
"I'm so sorry, Cal. I'm mortified."
"With a note that says 'our son,'" my mother said.
She hadn't raised her voice.
She was looking at Dane, not at Lydia.
Dane shrugged and spread his hands. "People type anything in those boxes, Mom."
Willa reached over and squeezed my forearm.
She is the warmest person I know, and her hands are always a little chilly.
"Oh honey, she tapped the wrong person," she said. "It happens to everybody. Send it back and it's done."
She smiled at me.
"Done," Dane agreed.
"Send it back tonight, little brother, and I'll buy you a beer. Now eat, before it all goes cold."
Everyone picked up a fork.
I ate nothing.
I watched my wife cut one potato into smaller and smaller pieces.
In the car, Lydia kept her eyes on the windshield.
"I'll explain tonight," she said. "Please, not while we're driving."
"Who's the son, Lyd?"
"Caleb. Please."
Her hands were folded in her lap so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.
At home I sat on the edge of the bed with the phone in my hand.
The bank app had one button under the deposit.
It said RETURN FUNDS.
I looked at it for a long time.
Then I closed the app without touching it.
So the money stayed where it was.
Lydia went to take a shower.
She always showers when she doesn't want to talk, and I had never once said so.
Her phone sat on the nightstand, face up, charging.
In five years I had never touched her phone.
I didn't touch it now.
It lit up on its own.
The text came from a contact saved as a single letter, D.
The preview was short enough to read from where I sat.
"Did he send it back? Say it was a work error. Do NOT let him talk to Willa."
The water kept running in the bathroom.
I read it again, and then the screen went dark.
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