Not Enough Support From My Husband, His Best Friend Stepped In novel · Chapter 1 of 16
Chapter 1: Eight Hundred
The nanny quits over an $800 allowance, Lainey calls her husband's best friend for formula, and her husband walks in shouting that he sent eighty thousand.
My phone buzzed on the kitchen counter at nine in the morning.
"Sumner Household has sent you $800.00."
It was the third month in a row.
Gloria was standing at the sink with Poppy's bottles, and she saw the screen over my shoulder.
She turned off the tap.
She untied her flowered apron, balled it up, and threw it on the floor.
"No," she said. "No more."
"Gloria, please. I'll get the rest to you. I just need a few days."
"You said that in March."
She grabbed her coat off the hook by the door.
"Rich people are always the cheapest," she said. "Eight hundred dollars. My granddaughter spends that on her phone. And she's fourteen."
"I'm not rich."
She looked around the kitchen.
The marble island. The copper pots nobody used. The chandelier Dalton's mother had picked out.
"Tell that to somebody else," she said.
The front door slammed hard enough to rattle the glass.
Poppy woke up screaming in her bassinet.
I picked her up and held her against my chest and didn't make a sound.
The tears ran down my face anyway.
When Dalton and I got married, he tried to set up a hundred thousand dollars a month for me.
I laughed at him.
I was a pastry chef. I bought my flour in fifty-pound sacks.
He used to complain that I was too cheap to buy myself a coat.
Then I got pregnant, and he hired Marissa Penrose.
In January, when I was eight months along, he said Marissa would take over the house accounts.
"So you don't have to think about anything," he said. "Just rest."
Since then, I'd gotten eight hundred dollars a month.
That was for everything.
Formula. Diapers. Groceries. Gloria.
I opened the cabinet over the stove.
One can of formula. I shook it.
Maybe two scoops left.
I made the bottle with shaking hands and Poppy took it in about four minutes.
Then she screamed again.
I hadn't eaten since a slice of toast the night before.
The fridge had half a lemon and a jar of mustard.
I sat on the floor with my back against the island and rocked her.
I scrolled my phone with my thumb because I didn't know what else to do.
Marissa's account came up first.
She'd posted twenty minutes ago.
She was standing in a fitting room in a white gown covered in tiny crystals.
The second photo was a receipt.
Five million dollars.
The caption said, "For tonight's gala. Worth every cent, he said."
Dalton had liked it.
I looked at that little red heart for a long time.
Poppy's face was purple from crying.
I had one person left to call, and I'd been trying not to call him for three weeks.
Shane Coyle had been Dalton's best friend since their freshman dorm.
He picked up on the second ring.
"Lainey? What's wrong?"
I tried to say it like a normal person.
"The baby's out of formula. She won't stop crying. And I haven't eaten all day, and I don't..."
My voice broke.
He didn't ask a single question.
"Twenty minutes," he said.
He was there in fifteen.
He was still in navy scrubs under his canvas jacket, and he had four grocery bags.
He set them down in the hall and held out his arms.
"Give her here."
I gave her to him.
Poppy stopped crying almost at once, which was humiliating.
He had a can of formula open and a bottle made with one hand.
He tucked her into the crook of his arm.
Then he opened my fridge.
He stared at the lemon and the mustard.
He didn't say anything.
He just started unpacking eggs.
"Sit down," he said.
"Shane, you've been on shift all night."
"Sit down, Lainey."
I sat.
He made scrambled eggs and toast and a bowl of soup from something in a carton.
He did all of it with my daughter asleep on his arm.
I ate so fast I burned my tongue.
He put another piece of toast on my plate without a word.
That was how Dalton found us at seven that night.
Shane had stayed.
He'd put Poppy down for a nap, cleaned the kitchen, and started a pot of chili.
He was stirring it with Poppy awake again on his shoulder when the front door opened.
Dalton stood in the kitchen doorway in his tuxedo.
He looked at the pot. He looked at the baby. He looked at me.
His face went dark.
"What are you doing here?"
Shane didn't turn around right away.
He finished stirring and set the spoon down.
"You won't take care of your own wife and kid," he said. "And you're asking me that?"
"Excuse me?"
"Eight hundred dollars, Dalton."
Shane turned then.
"You spend more than that on socks for your secretary."
Dalton looked at me.
He didn't look angry anymore.
He looked like someone had hit him.
"Eight hundred?"
"Every month," I said.
"I sent you eighty thousand every month!"
Nobody said anything.
Even Poppy stopped fussing.
The chili bubbled on the stove.
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