For Our 10th Anniversary, My Husband Gave Me a Green Dress and My Sister a Baby novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Told You What You Needed

Travis turns her fear against her, admits he told her what she needed to hear for years, and leaves for the sponsor photos without asking whether she will come.

"No," I said. "I'm not going downstairs."

Travis picked the ring off the ultrasound picture and wiped it with his thumb.

"You're in shock. Don't decide anything in shock."

"Who chose the dress, Travis?"

"Someone handled the gift for me." His voice stayed even. "My assistant, or the boutique. I signed a stack of cards this morning and didn't open the boxes."

It was the story I had given him in my own head all afternoon.

I hated how badly I wanted it to be true.

He turned to Shelby. "Go downstairs."

She didn't move. "She shouldn't be alone with you while she's like this."

While she's like this.

"I'll handle it," Travis said.

Shelby picked up her purse. When she reached the table she stopped beside me.

"I'm sorry it hurts. But none of this is the baby's fault."

I looked at her stomach.

"It isn't mine either."

Travis said her name in warning, and she left.

The door clicked shut.

"How long have you been sleeping with my sister?"

"Does the date change anything?"

"Yes."

"No. It just gives you something else to pick at."

"Was it before the last transfer?"

His jaw shifted.

That was my answer.

Fourteen weeks ago he had driven me home from the clinic, put me to bed and lain beside me while I cried. He had told me there were other ways to build a life.

All that time he had been building one with her.

"I never wanted you to find out like this," he said.

"How did you want me to find out?"

"Calmly. In a room where you couldn't make a scene."

"You brought her to our anniversary."

"It's a sponsor reception, Lee. I was trying to get through it, and then I was coming home to you."

"With your hand on her stomach."

His face went hard. "Nothing I say will be enough for you right now."

"What would be enough?"

"I don't know. I haven't known in years."

The words stopped me.

"Every appointment turned into a test I could fail," he said. "Every late flight home, you studied me for lipstick. Every road trip, I came back and paid for what your father did."

"That isn't true."

"Isn't it?"

He stepped close, and his voice dropped to the soft tone he used on referees and reporters.

"You told me you were afraid of marrying him. I spent ten years trying to prove I wasn't him. Do you know how tired that makes a person?"

No one else alive knew how scared I had been at eight, or at twenty-four, standing in a church basement with a veil in my hand.

I had given him that fear to keep safe.

Now he was using it against me.

For a moment I saw our ten years the way he told them. The questions after road trips. The way I went quiet whenever pictures of him with pretty fans came up online. How each failed transfer made me smaller and harder to reach.

Maybe I had made him feel watched.

Then I looked at the ultrasound.

"You could have left," I said.

His eyes flickered.

"You could have said you were unhappy. You could have asked for a divorce before you slept with my sister."

"It wasn't that simple."

"It was a lot simpler than this."

"We tried for years, Lee. You couldn't stop, even when it was wrecking us both."

Shame hit fast. The needles, the blood draws, the negative tests, every apology I had made to him for something that was not a crime.

"You told me a child didn't matter to you."

"I said what got you through the night."

I stopped breathing.

Travis shut his eyes, but he did not take it back.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Travis? Photos in twenty."

He looked at his watch.

"Seven thirty, Lee. We take two pictures, we get through the night, and we sort the rest out privately."

"You want me to stand next to you."

"For ten minutes."

He reached for my left hand, the ring pinched between his fingers.

I closed my fist.

"Don't put it back on me."

"You aren't thinking."

"I'm thinking more clearly than I have in ten years."

Irritation crossed his face. It was not fear that I was leaving. It was annoyance that I would not let him fix the scene.

He set the ring down on the table, carefully.

"Fine. Take a few minutes."

He straightened his blazer and walked out.

He never asked if I was coming.

I stood alone with my ring beside his baby's picture and the green silk spilling from its box.

On the table, Shelby's phone lit up.

She had left it behind in her hurry.

The name on the screen said Mom, and the preview said: Did she see the dress yet? Make sure she goes before she thinks.

The door opened again.

Shelby stood there, one hand on the frame, and saw me looking at her phone.

She didn't blush or apologize.

"Come downstairs, Lena," she said. "There's something you should see before you decide what to do."

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