The Bride He Replaced novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Shower

Six weeks went by, and I thought about Camilla being pregnant every single day.

Neither Camilla nor Miles called to say whether it was true, and I did not sign Marguerite's kinder page.

Bea stuck it on her refrigerator under a magnet shaped like a lemon, between the pizza menu and the dentist's reminder card.

"So we know where it is," she said.

On the last Saturday of the month, a crowd of women came to her front room to throw me a baby shower.

I was twenty-eight weeks along and could no longer see my shoes.

Three of them were librarians from my school, and one ran story hour and had brought a stuffed owl the size of a toddler.

The rest were nurses Bea had worked nights with for thirty years, and they had brought casseroles and opinions.

"You push in the third trimester," said one of them, "and you do not let anybody tell you different."

"Nobody has told me any of it," I said. "I'm just along for the ride."

"Good. Eat the cake."

Bea ran the games and allowed no talking out of turn.

For the first one, each woman tore off a length of toilet paper to wrap around my middle.

Bea's piece reached all the way around twice and she was loudly proclaimed the winner, and the nurses said she had cheated.

Duncan came to the door at two with six folding chairs under his arms and a casserole dish balanced on top.

"I was told I'm not allowed in," he said.

"You're not," said Bea. "Chairs on the porch. Dish to me."

He looked past her shoulder at the roomful of women, every one of whom had stopped talking to look at him.

"Ladies," he said, and went red to the collar, and walked down the steps.

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