She Bought My Husband for Seven Days, So I Took Back Everything novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Seven Shirts

Elise's blood test is positive and she tells no one; in Brent's packed duffel she finds a house key tagged in Lacey's handwriting from three years ago.

Brent's key turned in the front door at one in the morning.

I was sitting at the kitchen table with the lights off and the calendar in front of me.

Seven days were circled in red pen, in his handwriting.

He stopped in the doorway. "You didn't have to wait up."

"Sit down, Brent."

He stayed standing and loosened his tie. "You made a scene in front of two hundred people."

"You let me hear the dates from a stranger holding a card."

"I was going to tell you."

"When?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "After the bid. I didn't think she'd actually win."

"She won because someone paid for her credit this afternoon."

His hand dropped.

"Account ending 4417," I said. "Twenty-five thousand. That was our house money."

"It's a donation. It writes off against the company."

He said it quickly and smoothly, and he didn't look at the calendar.

"Does it?" I asked.

"Elise, it's one week. She's alone in that big house. She cried in my truck last month because nobody would help her hang a curtain rod."

"I would have hung it."

"You're busy."

I stood up.

He was a foot away from me, and he smelled like her perfume.

"Did you ever plan to be at my move?"

"I'll make it up to you. After Sunday, we'll take a trip."

I did not tell him about the test.

I had meant to give it to him in the car, as good news.

Now it stayed in my purse, and it was only mine.

"Sleep in the guest room," I said.

He opened his mouth, shut it, and went upstairs.

I did not sleep.

At eight, I was at the clinic on Marlow Street with my sleeve rolled up.

The nurse tied the band around my arm.

"First blood draw for pregnancy?" she asked.

"I took a home test last night. Two lines. But I've been wrong before."

"Wrong how?"

"Twice. They said it was fine, and then it wasn't."

She patted my shoulder, which she didn't have to do.

"We'll call this afternoon. Eat something."

In the parking lot, I sat behind the wheel and opened my purse to find the baby socks.

I had bought them four years ago and carried them to the gala for luck.

They were not in the purse.

I turned out the lining, the side pocket, the zipper pouch.

The test was there, wrapped in a tissue, and my lip balm and my keys.

The socks were gone.

I told myself they had fallen out when I snatched the purse off the chair in the ballroom.

My phone buzzed.

It was Wanda, who had worked in my shop for twelve years.

"Did he come home?" she asked.

"He came home."

"Did you throw him out?"

"I put him in the guest room."

"That's a bed, not a punishment." She sniffed. "I've got the new racks loaded. Don't you dare come in today. Rest."

"How did you know I should rest?"

"Because you went gray at that gala, honey. I was at table nine."

I laughed for the first time that day, and then my eyes stung.

The clinic called at two, while I stood in the shop stockroom pretending to count bolts of fabric.

"Mrs. Garner? Your hCG is positive."

I held the wall.

"It's early, so we'll repeat on Friday to be sure it's rising. Please don't lift anything heavy."

"I won't," I said, and I lifted a bolt of linen anyway.

I put it down again, and I cried into my sleeve.

When I got home, Brent was on the bedroom floor with an open duffel bag.

He had folded seven shirts, seven pairs of socks and a bag of gym clothes.

"Do you need help?" I asked from the doorway.

He glanced up. "It's fine. I only need the basics."

"Seven of everything."

"That's how many days there are."

"Yes," I said. "I counted too."

He laughed once, to show he'd taken it as a joke.

His phone rang on the dresser.

He turned the screen face down before I could read the name.

"Work," he said. "I have to take this downstairs."

He took it down the stairs, and I heard him say, "No, she's fine, don't worry."

The bag lay open on the carpet.

I told myself not to look.

Then I knelt and pushed my hand under the folded shirts, and my fingers closed on something cold.

It was a house key on a plastic tag.

The tag had a date written in marker, in handwriting I knew better than my own.

Lacey's handwriting.

The date was from three years ago.

Under it she had written: Welcome home.

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