When Love Runs Dry novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: Wrong Number
The hospital calls about her husband's crash and Meredith says it's the wrong number; a week later she hands him to his mistress, shuts the door, learns her divorce is final, and gets a photo of her grandmother's door: Tobias's firm now owns her hometown's water, and his mistress runs it.
The hospital called on a Tuesday morning while I was folding towels.
"Is this Mr. Spaulding's emergency contact?"
"Yes."
"He's been in a serious car accident. He needs surgery now, and a family member has to come sign the consent forms."
I held the phone and looked at the TV over the kitchen island.
The local news had a helicopter over I-95.
"A multi-car pile-up near Stamford this morning involved the car of Tobias Spaulding, CEO of Spaulding Capital."
"Witnesses say Mr. Spaulding threw himself across his passenger, Delaney Truesdell, at the moment of impact."
"He was badly hurt. Ms. Truesdell walked away with a scratch."
The camera swung to a stretcher at the far edge of the wreck.
I knew the shoulders under that blanket.
I knew the watch on the hand hanging off the side. I gave it to him on our first anniversary.
"Ma'am? Are you still there?"
"You have the wrong number," I said.
I hung up and turned off the TV.
Then I finished the towels.
Two years ago, I would have been in the car before the nurse finished her sentence.
I used to drive to hotel lobbies at two in the morning to catch them.
I used to call him forty times a night.
This year I was quiet.
I was the quietest thing in our house in Greenwich. A lamp. A chair nobody sat in.
A week later, Tobias came home.
He had a white pad taped over one eyebrow and his left arm in a sling.
Even gray in the face, he was the best-looking man in any room, and he knew it.
I was on the sofa with a novel and a cup of chamomile.
He stopped in the doorway and stared at me.
"You knew I was in a car accident."
I turned a page. "I knew."
"You knew." His voice cracked on it. "And you didn't come sign the forms?"
"No."
"You didn't call. You didn't come see me once. I lay there seven nights, Meredith. I'm your husband."
I looked up.
"You told me never to mention your name around your friends."
"You told me not to show up where you are, because it makes Delaney uncomfortable."
"I figured she'd be at the hospital. I did what you asked. What's wrong now?"
He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
"Maybe you could make me a list," I said. "Email it. What I can do, what I can't. It would save me guessing wrong all the time."
He looked at me.
"What happened to you?"
"Nothing happened. I don't check your phone. I don't call."
"When you bring Delaney home, I sleep in the guest room."
"I helped you pick out her birthday purse. The green one. She posted it."
"I've done everything you wanted, Tobias. What else is there?"
He didn't have an answer.
A year ago he would have had six.
His phone buzzed in his good hand.
DELANEY, with a red heart, and a selfie of her pouting in his bathrobe.
He glanced at me.
I went back to my book.
He answered.
"Babe!" Her voice was soft as frosting. "I turned in my thesis! I'm all yours now."
"I bought that black thing you wanted to see me in. The one with the lace. I'm waiting at my place."
Tobias looked at me again.
He was waiting for something. Tears, a thrown cup, anything.
I set the tea down.
I went to the hall cabinet and took out three boxes of condoms, still sealed in plastic.
I pressed them into his hand, right on top of the phone.
"Take these. We never used them. It's a waste to let them sit."
The color drained out of his face.
"Actually, don't bother with them," I said. "It would be best if Delaney had your baby."
I had my reasons for saying that.
He'd never once asked what they were.
"Babe?" Delaney cooed from the phone. "Why are you so quiet?"
He stabbed the screen and hung up.
His knuckles went white around the boxes.
Then he laughed, short and ugly.
"I get it. You're playing hard to get."
"You want me back, so now you're the cool wife. I told you, Meredith. I care about Delaney now. Your little games won't work."
I picked up my tea.
"Think whatever you want."
"Go. Don't keep her waiting. You don't need to rush back."
I walked past him into the guest room and shut the door in his face.
"Meredith, wait..."
The lock clicked.
"This hard-to-get crap won't work!" he shouted through the wood.
Something hit the doorframe hard. His good fist.
Then his shoes on the stairs.
The front door.
His driver's car going down the gravel.
I stood with my back against the door until I couldn't hear the engine anymore.
Then I sat on the guest bed and called my lawyer.
"It's Meredith. Is it done?"
"The judge entered the decree this morning at ten-fifteen. You're divorced."
"He doesn't know."
"He signed every page in June."
I remembered June 3.
Breakfast on the terrace. A stack of foundation gala papers with yellow flags.
The divorce agreement in the middle of the stack.
He signed every flag with the phone at his ear, calling somebody babe.
He never looked down once.
"Then I'm Meredith Brainard again," I said.
"Since ten-fifteen."
I hung up and knelt by the bed.
The suitcase underneath had been packed since June.
I was pulling it out when my phone buzzed again.
My grandmother, Opal. She's eighty-one and texts like she's paying by the word.
"MERRY CALL ME. WHAT IS THIS."
Under it was a photo of a paper taped crooked to her front door in Alder Falls.
ALDER FALLS WATER COMPANY IS NOW A SPAULDING CAPITAL COMPANY.
NEW RATES EFFECTIVE NOVEMBER 1.
At the bottom was a signature in loopy blue ink.
Delaney Truesdell, Transition Director.
My ex-husband had bought the water my grandmother drinks.
And he'd given it to her.
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