The Wife He Left Behind novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Everett

Cassia tells her mother about the baby and records her mother-in-law's scolding call; Patricia says Camille is coming to Thanksgiving with Tobias.

My mother lives in Everett, in the yellow house with the plastic geese on the porch.

I drove up Wednesday after work, with the ultrasound print on the passenger seat.

Joan opened the door in her quilted vest and looked at my face and said, "Who died?"

"Nobody."

"Then it's the husband. Come in, I've got soup."

I sat at her kitchen table, the one with the burn mark from the year she tried to make candy.

She put a bowl in front of me and sat down with her reading glasses on their cord.

I pushed the print across the table.

She picked it up and held it close to the light.

She looked at it for a long time.

"Well," she said. "That's a bean."

"It's twelve weeks."

"Does Tobias know?"

"No."

"Does anyone know?"

"You do."

Her eyes filled up, and she wiped them with the back of her wrist, annoyed at herself.

"I'm going to be a grandmother," she said. "And that man is going to hear it from me."

"Mom. No."

"I'll be polite. I'll be so polite he'll want to lie down."

I almost laughed. It came out as something else, and she pulled her chair around and held me until it stopped.

When I could talk, I showed her the photos.

I showed her the fourth one, the rooftop, the phone, the comments.

Joan read every comment with her lips moving.

"Power team," she said. "Power team. I drove forty children to school every day for thirty years and not one of them was ever a power team."

"He says Camille is like a sister."

"Do you have a sister?"

"No."

"Then you don't get to know what that's like. Neither does he."

She poured me more soup.

"What did he say about the baby?"

"I didn't tell him."

"Why not?"

I thought about it.

"Because he wouldn't ask me how I was," I said. "He told me not to read the comments. He told me what to think about the comments before I'd said a word about them. If I tell him now, he gets to decide what it means."

"He answered her."

"She was in the room."

Joan set her spoon down.

"Cassia, you write down what people say for a living. You've got the best ears in this family. What are they telling you?"

"That I don't know yet."

"Good answer. Don't tell him until you do."

My phone rang on the table.

The screen said Patricia Reiner.

My mother-in-law and I spoke four times a year, on holidays, and she was always stiff and formal.

I looked at Joan.

Joan tapped her own ear and mouthed, record it.

I didn't need to be told. I opened the voice memo and pressed the red button before I answered.

"Cassia, dear."

"Hello, Patricia."

"I'll be brief. Tobias called me this morning, quite upset. He says you rang him at work, in the middle of a meeting, about some photographs."

"He told me he was between meetings."

"He told me you accused him of something."

"I asked him why he was holding his assistant's phone."

Patricia made a small sound in her throat.

"That is exactly what I mean. That poor girl has worked herself to the bone for my son. She is under a great deal of pressure, and so is he, and the last thing either of them needs is a jealous wife calling across the world."

"I'm not jealous. I asked a question."

"You asked it at a very bad time."

"Do you know her well?"

"Camille?" She paused before she answered. "She's a lovely girl. She's been to this house several times."

"Tobias never mentioned that."

"Tobias doesn't tell you everything, dear. A marriage is not a confession booth."

My mother's mouth had gone very flat.

"Patricia, is there something you want to tell me?"

"Only that I expect you to behave properly. Tobias is up for the directorship in December, and the firm looks at wives."

"Looks at wives."

"Everyone knows that. Be civil, Cassia."

"Civil about what?"

"About Thanksgiving. Camille is flying in with Tobias on the twenty-sixth. I've set a place for her at my table. You'll be civil."

I held very still.

I had not been told that Tobias was coming home for Thanksgiving.

I had not been told that anyone was coming with him.

"He wanted to surprise you," Patricia added. "I suppose I've spoiled it."

"I suppose you have."

"Good night, dear."

The line went quiet.

I stopped the recording. It had run a little over three minutes.

Joan leaned over and pressed play, and we listened to it twice.

On the second time, at the part where Patricia said she's been to this house several times, my mother said a word I had never heard her say in front of a stranger.

"Cassia," she said. "Your husband is bringing his assistant to Thanksgiving."

"And his mother set her a place."

"And you're the only one at that table who doesn't know why."

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