Six Weeks After Giving Birth, I Discovered His Affair and Left With Our Son novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Pancake Photo
Libby begs her husband for two hours of sleep and is told to cope alone. A stranger's breakfast photo shows him kissing another woman in a hotel café nine minutes away. She films it, says nothing, and leaves at five with their son. HOOK: Carter texts that he'll tell a judge what kind of mother drives off at night.
At seven that Friday morning, six weeks after I gave birth, I begged my husband for two hours of sleep and he said no.
Charlie lay against my chest, finally asleep.
I had dried milk on my shirt from yesterday.
"Come home early, Carter," I said into the phone. "Take the earlier flight. I only need two hours when I'm not the one listening for him."
"I wish I could, love. I'm in Denver, and I'm in meetings all day."
"I know. I'm asking anyway."
He sighed.
"You're a mother now. You have to learn to handle him on your own."
I had fed our son, changed him and walked the hallway with him all night.
"Other women manage while their husbands work. I'm trying to keep a roof over his head."
"You're his father."
"I'll be home by five. Eat something."
He hung up.
I stood in the hallway with the phone in my hand until Charlie stirred, and then I started walking again.
Taryn came at nine.
Taryn Padgett was my friend from the childbirth class, the one Carter had found and signed us up for in the spring.
She had offered to bring breakfast after dropping her daughter at school.
She was the only person who asked how I was and then waited for the answer.
"Everything bagels," she said, setting the bag on the counter. "And the good cream cheese."
She held out her arms for Charlie.
"Shower," she said. "Go. I've got him."
I stood under the water for a long time.
When I came out, Taryn was in the rocker with Charlie asleep on her shoulder, typing on her phone with her free thumb.
"Writing up your sleep," she said. "Somebody should keep track. How many hours since Wednesday?"
"Maybe six."
She typed it and looked up at me, and her eyes were wet.
"You're doing better than you think. Eat something."
I ate half a bagel standing at the counter.
Taryn left at ten and hugged me at the door for a long time.
I fed Charlie in the chair by the window and opened the Arvada Eats page, because I used to be a person who went to restaurants.
The first post was a plate of pancakes.
It had been posted at nine forty-one that morning by a stranger.
The caption said: Best pancakes at the Alder Hotel café. Worth the drive.
Behind the plate was a wall mirror.
In the mirror was a corner table.
At that table sat my husband in the gray jacket I had pressed for his flight to Denver.
He had one hand on the cheek of a dark-haired woman, and he was kissing her.
It was Carter, and the Alder Hotel was nine minutes from our house.
I took a screenshot.
Then I put Charlie in the carrier on my chest and got my keys.
A man in a dark suit held the lobby door for me and looked at the baby, then politely at nothing.
"Welcome to the Alder," he said. "Can I help you find something?"
"The café."
"Through the lobby, on your left."
I walked through the lobby with my hand over the back of Charlie's head.
The corner table was by the mirror.
Carter sat with his back to me and his chair pulled close to hers.
The woman had sleek dark hair and a charcoal suit, and her hand lay on top of his on the tablecloth.
I held up my phone and filmed them for as long as it took to count to ten.
Then I walked over.
"Good morning, Carter."
He turned around so fast that his coffee went over.
The woman took her hand back and said nothing at all.
"Libby." His face went white. "What are you doing here?"
"A stranger posted his pancakes," I said. "You were in the mirror."
"This isn't what it looks like."
"Denver looks very nice."
"Libby, listen to me. You're exhausted. You're not thinking clearly."
I looked at the woman.
She was looking at Charlie's face, not mine.
"Finish your business trip," I said. "I'll see you at five."
Carter said my name again.
I didn't stop.
At the lobby door the man in the dark suit was waiting, and he slid a card into my hand before I could ask why.
"The café cameras overwrite every thirty days," he said quietly. "If you ever need the footage, call me before then."
The card said: Nate Ostrow, General Manager.
I drove home with the card on the passenger seat, and I didn't cry.
I packed a suitcase without folding anything, then the diaper bag, Charlie's birth certificate and my laptop.
At four fifty I buckled Charlie into the car seat and set it by the front door.
Carter's car pulled into the driveway at five.
He came up the walk with grocery-store roses.
"Don't be dramatic," he said when he saw the car seat. "Let's go inside. I'll call Taryn to come over and stay with you."
"Taryn doesn't need to come."
"You're not well, Libby. I'm worried about you."
"You told me you were in Denver."
"Where do you think you're going with him? You have no job right now. You have nothing."
He was smiling, patient and kind, and he didn't move out of the doorway.
I picked up the car seat.
"You'll be back tonight," he said. "You always are."
I opened the front door and stepped out.
I was on the highway with the sun going down when my phone lit up on the dashboard.
Carter had written: Come home tonight, or tomorrow I tell a judge what kind of mother drives off in the dark with a six-week-old.
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