They Called Me Barren. They Picked the Wrong Wife novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Bev's Kitchen

Callum and Maggie meet over Bev's laptop, where the county record shows a deed signed with a name Maggie never uses; Neil texts that Lorraine will have the church pray for Maggie's condition, and Maggie says she will be in the front pew.

Callum Rowan stood up from Bev's couch when I came into the kitchen.

He was taller than I remembered, and there was grey in his beard now.

He had been next door to my front door for two hours and had not gone through it.

"Maggie," he said.

"You left the week after my wedding."

"I did."

"You didn't send a card. You didn't call when my grandmother's name went up on the church wall."

"No."

Bev put a mug in my hands. "Drink that. He's not here to fight you."

"Then what is he here for?"

Callum looked at the snow on the window. "I came to see Mom. I got as far as the street."

"Well, she's at my table," I said. "Making a toast."

His jaw moved.

"I heard," he said. "Bev watched it through the window with binoculars."

"They're for birds," Bev said.

I set the mug down and sat at her table without taking my coat off.

My hands were shaking, and I put them under my legs so nobody would see.

"Bev, can I use your laptop?"

She had it open before I finished asking.

I typed in the county recorder's site, the page where deeds are kept for anyone to look at.

I put in my address.

The newest entry was dated March fourteenth.

It was a quitclaim deed, a paper in which I gave away half my grandmother's house.

Grantor: Margaret Hollis.

Grantee: Neil Rowan and Margaret Rowan, jointly.

At the bottom was a signature in blue ink, round and careful, that read Maggie Rowan, and a notary's stamp beside it.

I read it three times.

"I have never signed my name like that," I said.

Callum came around the table and looked over my shoulder, and he did not touch the chair.

"What do you sign?"

"M. Hollis. I kept my name. I've signed it that way on every form for five years, and Lorraine knows it, because she complained at the wedding."

"Then that isn't your hand."

"That's somebody's hand practicing mine."

Bev leaned in. "Somebody who took her time. Look at the loop on the M."

"Mom has a friend at Grace Church who's a notary," Callum said quietly. "She has for thirty years."

I turned and looked up at him.

"You think Lorraine did this?"

He didn't answer.

He had decided on the drive how much he would tell me, and it was not much.

"I'll tell you what I can prove," he said. "I can't prove that yet."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only honest one I've got tonight."

My phone buzzed on the table.

It was Neil.

I read it out loud, because I wanted someone else in the room to hear how it sounded.

"Mom asked Pastor to lead a prayer at the ten o'clock tomorrow. For the baby, and for your condition. Please don't come. Please, Maggie. Let me fix this at home."

Nobody spoke.

"Your condition," Bev said. "I've had a condition. It was a cold."

"She'll stand up in front of the whole church," I said. "And three hundred people will bow their heads for me."

"You could stay here," Callum said. "Let her pray at an empty pew."

"I stayed for five years."

My voice came out steadier than I felt.

"I stayed quiet through every Easter and every baby shower and every church supper where she patted my hand and told people what was wrong with me."

"Maggie."

"I'm going to be in the front pew."

Callum looked at me for a long moment.

Then he nodded, once.

"I'll drive you."

"I'll drive myself."

"Then I'll sit in the back."

"You can sit wherever you want. You've had practice staying out of the way."

It was cruel, and I saw it land.

He took it without moving his face.

"That's fair," he said.

Bev cleared her throat and stood. "I'm making up the spare room. Nobody is going back across that lawn tonight, and that includes you, Callum Rowan, if you're thinking of it."

She left.

The kitchen clock ticked.

I looked at the folder in my bag, with Neil's name on the first page and his signature at the bottom of the second.

"Callum."

"Yes."

"When I told them tonight, his mother never looked surprised."

He went very still.

"She looked at Neil," I said. "Not at me. She was waiting for him to do his part."

He put both hands flat on Bev's table.

"Get some sleep," he said. "Tomorrow, wear something she hasn't seen."

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