On Halloween, My Husband Kissed Another Woman in Front of Our Daughter, So We Left novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Hobby Room

Brad has invited Mona and Eli to live in the house for two weeks, packed away Lana's sewing room and given Junie's bed to Eli; Lana takes the bed back, hides the important papers at her sister's, and watches him give Mona a key.

"What arrangement?"

Mona's hand dropped from my husband's chest.

Brad looked up the stairs. "Not tonight, Lana."

"It's all right," Mona said softly. "She deserves to know."

I did not like the word deserves in her mouth.

She gathered Eli and left.

Brad locked the door behind them and turned to face me.

I came down slowly. "What happens Monday?"

He took off the captain's coat and hung it on the banister.

"Mona is having minor surgery. She and Eli will stay here for two weeks while she recovers."

I thought I had misheard him.

"You invited them to live in our house."

"For two weeks."

"Without asking me."

"Her husband asked me to look after them. Before he died."

Her husband had been Brad's best friend since college.

Nobody had asked my husband to kiss his widow.

Nobody had asked him to put her in my dress and her son in our daughter's place.

"She can recover in her own house," I said. "You can drive her meals over."

"She can't do stairs, and Eli needs somebody there."

"Then you stay at her place."

"I'm not leaving my home."

"You want me to share it with the woman you kissed tonight."

"That was a performance."

"That was a choice."

His jaw set. "I'm not abandoning my best friend's widow because you're jealous over a costume."

A floorboard creaked above us.

Junie stood at the top of the stairs in her pajamas, holding the railing.

Brad lowered his voice. "This is exactly why I didn't bring it up sooner."

I looked at him.

It was not a plan that had come up late.

He had known I would say no.

I went up and took Junie's hand. "Come on, sweetheart. Back to bed."

She stopped outside my sewing room.

The door was open and the shelves were bare.

The fabric I stacked by color was gone.

My cutting table was folded against the wall, and a plastic bag covered the head of my dress form.

New sheets lay folded on a narrow daybed.

"Where's your stuff?" Junie asked.

I went in.

My two machines had been shoved under the covered table.

Boxes of thread and half-finished alterations were stacked against the closet door.

He had not thrown out my work.

He had packed it inside its own room.

"Mona needs a quiet place to rest," Brad said from the hall.

Junie looked at the daybed, then at me. "Where will you sew?"

"It's only two weeks," Brad answered.

She had asked me.

"We'll figure it out," I told her.

Brad leaned on the doorframe. "See? Your mother understands."

"No." I turned. "I understand you moved everything because you never meant to let me decide."

"We needed a guest room."

"This was not an empty room."

"It's a hobby room, Lana."

Every costume Junie had ever worn came out of that room.

So did the money I made altering clothes for the neighbors, and the savings account he had never asked about.

None of it counted with him, because it never showed up on a pay stub.

Junie tugged my hand. "Can we go to my room?"

Her moon costume from last spring had been pulled out of the closet and crammed into a storage bin.

Half her stuffed animals were gone from the bed.

In their place sat Eli's overnight bag and a pair of folded boys' pajamas.

Junie stopped in the doorway. "Why is his bag on my bed?"

"Eli will sleep in here while his mom uses the sewing room," Brad said behind us. "You can share with your mother for a few nights."

"Where will I sleep?"

"With Mommy. Eli can't sleep on couches. You're smaller."

My daughter walked to the bed and picked her rabbit up off the floor.

"He already got my part."

"Junie," Brad warned.

"He can't have my bed too."

She did not cry this time.

That frightened me more.

I carried Eli's bag out, and Brad blocked the hall. "What are you doing?"

"Giving Junie her room back."

"This is my house too."

"It's mine too. My name is on the deed beside yours, and my mother's money paid for it."

"I paid for that bed."

He heard himself only after he said it.

He did not take it back.

I shook out her sheets while she lined her animals up against the pillows.

Brad watched from the doorway. "You're making this harder than it has to be."

I tucked the blanket under the mattress.

"No. I'm making one thing clear. Junie does not lose her room because you made a promise without us."

After she slept, I gathered her baby photographs, the letters I'd written her each birthday, our passports, and my mother's ring.

I drove them to my sister's house first thing the next morning.

I told myself I was only being careful.

I left the machines behind, because they were too heavy to move alone and I had nowhere to put them.

On Monday afternoon a car pulled into the driveway.

Mona climbed out slowly while Eli carried a backpack and two suitcases.

Brad took the bags and held out our spare front-door key.

Mona looked at it. "Brad, I don't want Lana to think I'm taking over."

"You're not."

He closed her fingers around the key. "Keep it. You shouldn't have to wait on anybody to let you in."

Her eyes found mine through the open doorway.

Brad followed her look. "Lana's angry right now. She'll cool off."

He picked up Mona's suitcase.

"Once she does, she'll help."

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