Divorce While I'm Pregnant? Fine, Let's Sign It! novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Table Nine
Greta finds Holden feeding Daphne tiramisu, says fine to his divorce and signs, and Otis tells her his cameras caught every word.
My husband was feeding Daphne tiramisu off his own spoon when I walked into the dessert shop on our corner.
It was a freezing Tuesday in December, ten past three.
I was twenty-five weeks pregnant, I had just left my doctor's office with a new ultrasound photo in my purse, and all I wanted was something sweet.
Holden sat at table nine by the window, the only table with sun on it.
Daphne sat across from him with her hand on top of his.
She was laughing with her whole mouth.
In six years of marriage, I had never once seen Holden feed anyone, not even me.
My phone buzzed in my coat pocket.
I looked at it because I couldn't look at the table.
It was a text from Daphne, sent twelve minutes ago: "Board meeting is running long! I'll make sure he eats something. Put your feet up, you've earned it. xx"
Daphne had been Holden's assistant for four years.
Last Saturday she had spent six hours on a ladder painting our nursery yellow, because I wasn't allowed near the fumes.
I had made her a lasagna to say thank you.
The shop was full, a dozen small tables and a line at the counter.
A woman by the window held her phone up toward table nine, filming the CEO of Stroud Capital with a spoon in his hand.
I took out my phone too and pressed record.
Then I walked over, one hand under my belly.
"Holden."
He looked up.
He didn't jump, and he didn't let go of her hand until he had finished chewing.
"Greta," he said. "Sit down."
"I'll stand."
"I was going to tell you on Friday."
"Tell me what?"
"I'm filing for a divorce." His voice was level. "Daphne and I have been together since the summer."
Daphne took her hand back slowly.
"Greta, I'm so sorry it's happening like this," she said. "Please, sit. You shouldn't be on your feet."
The man behind the counter had come out from behind it.
He was tall, in a navy apron, with flour on both forearms, and he set a cup of ginger tea on the empty chair next to me.
"Sit before your knees go," he said. "It's on the house."
I sat.
I put my phone on my knee, still recording.
"I'm pregnant, Holden."
"I know. That's why it has to be now." He turned his cup a quarter turn on its saucer. "The baby needs a settled home."
Daphne already had a folder out of her bag.
Not her purse, her work bag, the leather one she carried to every board meeting.
She set it on the table next to the tiramisu and laid a pen on top.
Papers like that took weeks to draw up.
They had planned this, and I was the last person to find out, in front of a dozen strangers.
My face went hot.
Then something in me went quiet, and the baby rolled once under my ribs.
I picked up the pen.
"Divorce while I'm pregnant?" I said. "Fine. Let's sign it."
The shop had gone silent.
I read the first page.
I read the second.
On the last line of the petition, I wrote my name, Greta Hensley Stroud, and the date.
Daphne smiled and reached for the folder.
"There's one more page," she said. "Page nine."
I turned to it.
It said that after the birth, the child would live with Holden Stroud at the family residence.
It said I would have every other weekend.
"What is this?"
"The part the lawyers need," Holden said. "Sign it, and we're done."
"No."
"Greta."
"I signed the divorce. I'm not signing my daughter away."
I slid page nine back across the table.
Holden looked at it for a moment, then at the woman filming by the window, then at me.
"My mother's lawyers will fix page nine," he said. "Don't make this ugly."
He picked up his spoon again.
"And in February, the courier comes like always. You sign that one like always. It's your grandfather's trust paperwork, and that doesn't change."
"Fine," I said.
I had signed that form every February for six years at our kitchen island.
I had never once read past my name.
"One more thing." Holden wiped his mouth with a napkin. "The nursery is finished, so you don't have to worry. Daphne painted it so the baby will feel at home when she comes to us."
I stood up.
My hands were steady.
So I stepped out.
The cold hit my face on the sidewalk, and I breathed it in until my eyes stopped stinging.
The door opened behind me.
It was the man in the apron, holding my scarf, which I had left on the chair.
"You forgot this."
"Thank you."
"I'm Otis." He wrapped it around my neck himself, carefully, because of my belly. "My cameras have table nine from every angle, with sound. I saw all of it."
I stared at him.
"Whenever you want it, ask for me," he said. "It's yours."
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