On Halloween, My Husband Kissed His Mistress, and Our Daughter Chose Her Over Me novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Reading Night
Joanna watches Connor kiss Brynn in her hand-sewn dress while Pippa takes Brynn's hand, says it to the room, and walks out to find her key no longer fits.
At seven o'clock on Halloween night, the principal called the Ellery family to the stage while I was still frosting cupcakes.
I stood behind the bake table in the school gym, in jeans and my apron, with thirty-six pumpkin cupcakes lined up in front of me.
My dress was hanging in the costume room down the hall.
I had spent forty hours sewing it, a grey-blue gown with a white collar and a cap, to match the witch costume I made for my daughter.
Brynn had offered to hang the garment bag up for me at five, so it wouldn't get frosting on it.
Brynn tutored our daughter every week and ran the volunteer sign-up sheet, and all afternoon she had carried my cupcake trays.
"Go sit down, I've got the rest," she had said, and put a coffee in my hand.
I told her she was a lifesaver.
In October she had asked to see the dress, so I had shown her every photo on my phone.
Pippa came to my table at quarter to seven in her black velvet cape with the green lining.
She is eleven, and under the cape she wore her old tablet in a drawstring pouch around her neck, as she had all fall.
I offered to hold it while she did the costume walk.
"It's fine, Mom." She put her hand over the pouch.
Then she said, "Stay at the cupcake table tonight, okay? Please."
"I'll be in the front row for the photo," I said.
"Mom. Just stay at the table."
I thought it was nerves, and I squeezed her shoulder.
Connor had texted me at five: Running late from the lot. Don't worry about anything tonight, I'll find you both.
So when the principal's voice came over the speaker, I looked up for my husband, finally walking in, in his rented colonial coat.
He was already on the stage.
Pippa stood between him and a woman in a grey-blue wool gown with a white collar.
The woman's cap was pulled low, and she was laughing at something he had said.
I knew that gown, because I had stitched every inch of its collar.
"And here's our Salem family," the principal said into the microphone. "Mom, Dad and our little witch!"
The whole gym clapped.
The woman turned around.
It was Brynn, in my dress, with my cap on her head.
Connor took her face in both hands and kissed her.
It was a long kiss, with camera flashes going off and his hand on the collar I had starched myself.
Forty phones were up.
I stared at them, because I couldn't make myself think about anything else.
Then Connor looked across the gym at me and smiled.
"Jo!" he called, loud and warm. "Come say thank you to Brynn. She stepped in while you were busy with the cupcakes."
Heads turned toward my table.
Somebody near the stage said, quietly, "Oh, that's the wife."
I looked at my daughter.
Pippa looked back at me for one second.
Then she looked at the floor, and she took Brynn's hand.
A gym full of parents was waiting to watch me say thank you.
I made my decision right there, in one sentence.
I was not going to scream, and I was not going to thank anyone.
So I took off my apron.
I folded it and set it beside the cupcakes, and I walked across the gym with every phone following me.
At the foot of the stage steps I stopped.
"Good evening," I said to the room. "I'm Joanna Ellery. That's my husband, that's my daughter, and that's my dress."
Nobody clapped now.
"Brynn, keep it," I said. "It took me forty hours. I'll send you the bill for the fabric."
Brynn's face went white, which was the first thing all night that made sense to me.
I held out my hand to the stage.
"Pippa, honey. Do you want to come with me?"
Pippa's fingers tightened around Brynn's.
She shook her head once, without looking up.
Connor gave a short laugh for the crowd. "Jo, don't. She's tired. Everybody's tired."
"All right," I told my daughter.
I didn't look at my husband.
I walked out through the gym doors into the cold and I did not run.
I drove home because I couldn't think of anywhere else, and I sat in the dark driveway until my hands worked again.
Every light in our house was off.
My key wouldn't turn in the front door.
I tried the side door, and then the garage keypad, and it beeped red at me three times.
The front lock was new brass, still bright at the edges, with the hardware store sticker on the strike plate.
Someone had changed it that afternoon, while I was in the school kitchen baking his family's favorite cupcakes.
At nine, headlights swung into the drive.
Connor rolled his window down and didn't get out.
"Go to Roz's, Jo," he said. "Calm down. We'll talk when you're ready to apologize to Pippa."
The back door opened, and Pippa climbed out in her cape with her hand on the pouch.
Brynn followed her, still in my dress, and unlocked my front door with a key of her own.
Upstairs, Pippa's light came on.
I saw her at the window.
Brynn's hand was on her shoulder, and as I watched, the blind came down.
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