Reborn, I Gave My Daughter to His Mistress novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Lunch in the Trash
Abigail wakes in her kitchen before her own death, leaves the lunch in the trash, tells her daughter she is done, and finds lipstick on her husband's collar, the mistress's text and the one fact that makes the house hers.
At my funeral, my daughter hugged my husband's mistress and called her Mom.
Three weeks later, my husband slid a ring onto that woman's finger.
Then I opened my eyes.
I was standing in my kitchen, holding the lunch Cora had just thrown in the trash.
I looked at the bin.
This time, I dropped the lunch back in and closed the lid.
"Are you even listening?" Cora stood in the doorway with her mascara smeared and her chin up. "You're suffocating me. You go through my phone, you count my calories, you sit over my shoulder while I study. I'm seventeen, not seven."
She was my beautiful girl.
I had walked out of a partner-track job at thirty-one, one year from making partner, to raise her.
In the other life, she had not cried once at my funeral.
"I wish Delaney was my mom," she said. "At least she treats me like a person."
The last time she said it, I cried for an hour and then baked her favorite lasagna to apologize.
I dried my hands on a dish towel instead.
"Okay."
She blinked. "Okay?"
"You want to run your own life. Go ahead. I won't check your phone or wake you up. I won't pack your lunch."
She watched my face for the trick.
"Skip class if you want. Stay up gaming until four. It's your choice."
"Is this some reverse psychology thing?"
"No. I'm done."
She waited for the catch, and none came.
"Fine," she said, with a short, hard laugh. "You'll last two days. You can't help it. You love controlling me."
She stomped upstairs and slammed her door so hard the photos in the hallway shook.
I sat down at the kitchen island and pressed two fingers against my temple.
The headache was back.
It was the same dull pain I had ignored for months, because there was always a lunch to pack or a tutor to call.
In my last life, I collapsed on this exact tile floor the night of Cora's graduation party. She was celebrating at Delaney's lake house.
Nobody found me for nine hours.
I opened my laptop and booked a brain scan for the next morning.
At dinner, Cora came down and dropped a bag of burgers and fries on the counter.
She has celiac disease. One bite of that bun puts her on the bathroom floor.
For seventeen years I had cooked every single thing she ate.
"A friend sent it," she said.
"Enjoy," I said, and kept eating my salad.
She stared at me. Then she grabbed the bag and muttered on her way up, "Let's see how long this act lasts."
Gilbert came home at 11:40.
He smelled of bourbon and a perfume I don't wear.
"Why is Cora still gaming? The SATs are in three months, Abigail." He yanked off his tie and threw his shirt at me. "Get the lipstick out of the collar. It was a client dinner. Somebody's wife got sloppy."
Somebody's wife.
I stepped aside, and the shirt hit the floor.
"Do it yourself. I'm not your maid, and Cora isn't only my job. She wants to make her own choices, so I'm letting her. If you want her studying, knock on her door."
He stared at me. "What has gotten into you? Is this about the fight with Cora? You're the adult. Stop being petty."
Then he turned around, and I saw a dark red smear above his collar, on his neck.
He never noticed me looking.
He took a pillow and went to the guest room. "Don't start a war in this house, Abigail."
I stayed in the kitchen.
Two years ago I had made a fake Instagram account. I never had the nerve to use it.
I used it now.
Delaney Radbourne's newest post loaded at once.
It was a photo of two hands laced together on a white tablecloth.
The man wore the watch I had bought Gilbert for our fifteenth anniversary.
The caption said: Some loves never really end.
The post was dated March 9th.
Under it, a comment from my daughter's account: GOALS!!!
My hand shook, but I didn't cry.
I had done all my crying in another life.
Gilbert's phone buzzed on the counter where he had left it.
Delaney: Let's tell Cora after the SATs, so she isn't rattled. Keep the house calm till then. I can't wait to keep you.
I read it twice.
Then I smiled.
The house had belonged to my father, and it was in my name.
Gilbert had never once read the prenup he signed.
So I stopped doing what everyone had counted on me to do.
I turned off the kitchen light and went to bed, and for the first time in seventeen years I slept through the night.
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