Chapter 8: Waiting Room

I read it four times.

She thinks we're married.

Four years ago. Two years before Blair. Before any gala. Before any forced wedding.

He had never meant to marry me at all.

Nathan took the phone back gently.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should have told you then. I thought he'd come around. And then he threw me out, and I thought you'd chosen."

"I didn't know there was anything to choose."

"I know that now."

His students were drifting back in with their coffees.

He gave me his number and made me send him a text right there so he'd have mine.

"If you need anything," he said. "I mean anything. I'm on Dock Street. The old warehouse with the green door."

I nodded.

I didn't trust my voice.

The next morning was my twenty-five-week appointment.

I'd been going to the same clinic since the start. A women's practice in a brick building on Garland Avenue, with a fish tank in the waiting room.

My mother came with me.

She'd found an old wool coat of hers that closed over my belly. It smelled like cedar.

The waiting room was busy. A woman with twins in a double stroller. A teenager with her mother. Two couples holding hands.

I gave my name at the desk.

The receptionist knew me. She usually asked how the baby was kicking.

Today she didn't smile.

"Ms. McCallum. Um. Would you mind having a seat? There's been a change to your file."

"What change?"

"Just have a seat, please. Someone will be with you."

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