The Baby Couldn't Tie Him, The Lie Did novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Station
Six months pregnant, Valerie finds her mother arrested for hitting a woman, and the woman's husband walks in: Mitchell, who tells the officer they're married; outside, her mother shows her a photo of their marriage certificate.
I was six months pregnant when the police called to say my mother had hit a woman.
I thought they had the wrong number.
My mother was fifty-four. She cleaned houses. She apologized to furniture when she bumped into it.
"Maureen McCallum," the officer said. "She gave us your name. You'd better come down."
The Harbor station on Front Street smelled like burnt coffee and wet coats.
I heard my mother before I saw her.
"You took another woman's husband!" she was shouting. "Somebody should have slapped you years ago!"
She was halfway across the room, and a young officer had her by both arms.
Her work smock was torn at the pocket. Her reading glasses swung on their cord.
Across the room sat a woman in a pale pink coat, holding an ice pack to her cheek.
She was young. Platinum hair cut in a sharp bob. Pearl studs.
"Mom." I got between them with my belly first. "Mom, stop. Look at me."
My mother had always been like this about cheaters.
If she saw a man sneaking around on his family, she couldn't walk past it. She had to put herself in the middle.
Her own sister had been left with three kids and a stack of bills. My mother never forgot it.
"Valerie, she's a liar," she said. "I saw the pictures. I saw them with my own eyes."
"Okay. Okay. Sit down."
The woman in pink lowered her ice pack and looked at us.
Just looked.
"My husband's on his way," she said. "He won't let this go."
I got my mother into a plastic chair and held her hand.
It was shaking. Or mine was.
Thirty minutes later, the doors swung open and cold air rolled in off the harbor.
The woman in pink was up before the doors had closed.
She threw herself at the man who walked in and burst into tears against his chest.
"We're not settling this," he told the officer at the desk. "I want her charged."
I knew that voice.
I had fallen asleep to that voice for six years.
I knew the dark wool coat. I had picked it out.
I knew the silver watch on his wrist. I had bought it with my first paycheck.
The married man my mother had attacked was my husband.
Mitchell Thornton.
He put his mouth against the woman's hair.
"Don't cry, sweetheart. She's going to pay for this. I promise."
He hadn't looked at me.
Maybe he had, and it didn't matter.
A cramp twisted low in my stomach. I grabbed the back of the chair.
The woman turned in his arms and pointed at my mother.
"That's her. She hit me. She kept saying I stole her daughter's husband."
Her voice cracked right on cue.
"She smashed our wedding photos, Mitchell. Every single one."
My mother came up out of the chair.
"You liar!" She pointed straight at him. "Mitchell! How could you do this to her?"
That was when he saw us.
His face went white.
His hand stopped moving on the woman's back.
I took one step toward him.
The female officer at the desk spoke first.
"Sir. What's your relationship to this woman?"
Mitchell looked at me.
For one long second, he looked right at me and my stomach.
Then he took out his wallet, pulled out his ID, and set it on the desk.
"We're married."
Everything went quiet.
The phones. The printer. The man arguing at the next desk.
Six years.
We met at Saint Jude's University when I was twenty-one.
He was the Thornton boy, the shipping heir, and he walked away from all of it for me.
He started his own company from nothing, with my code and my mother's savings.
He said we couldn't register the marriage. Not yet.
"My family would find out," he used to say. "They'd bury us before we got started."
We married on the beach at Gull Point with my mother and his best friend as witnesses.
No license. Just a ring and his promise.
"One day, Val, you'll be my wife in front of everybody."
He'd said it with my face in his hands.
Now he stood with his hand on another woman's back and his ID on a police desk.
My eyes burned.
"Ma'am?" The officer was looking at my mother. "Can you tell me why you struck Ms. Pendry?"
My mother opened her mouth to tell her.
I grabbed her arm.
She felt my hand shaking and squeezed it back, soft, like I was eight years old.
I made myself look at Mitchell.
He looked away first.
So did I.
I looked down at my belly instead, and I said the most humiliating thing I have ever said.
"I'm sorry, officer. My mother made a mistake. She thought Ms. Pendry was somebody else."
It took an hour to settle.
When it was done, I stood in front of the woman in pink and lowered my head.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Pendry."
She didn't answer me.
She hooked her arm through Mitchell's and looked my mother up and down.
"Fine. I'll drop it." Her voice was sweet as syrup. "She's old, and she's still scrubbing other people's toilets. Life's obviously been hard on her."
Then her eyes went to my stomach.
"But honestly? If a baby can't keep a man, maybe it's time to let him go."
She smiled.
"Next time you might not meet people as generous as me and my husband."
My chest was empty. I smiled anyway.
"Thank you for not pressing charges, Ms. Pendry. I'll think about what you said."
I thanked the officers and walked my mother out without looking back.
We made it past four shop windows before my knees went.
I sat down on the cold sidewalk and sobbed.
My mother crouched and rubbed my back in slow circles.
"Valerie," she whispered. "Mom's here. I've got you."
My phone buzzed in my coat.
A text from Mitchell.
"Val, let me explain when I get home."
My mother read it over my shoulder.
Her mouth went thin.
She took out her own phone, the cracked one with the rubber case, and opened her photos.
"I wasn't going to show you," she said. "Not like this."
It was a picture of a hallway with cream walls.
On the wall hung a gold frame.
Inside the frame was a marriage certificate.
Mitchell Robert Thornton and Blair Anne Pendry.
The date was March 14 of last year.
The week Mitchell was in Singapore.
The week he'd called me every night at midnight to say he missed me.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend