He Said It Was Just Paper. I Left. novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Hormones

Willa collects her things while Constance calls her hysterical, and Posy whispers not to sign anything. A for-sale sign sits in Constance's trunk.

On Sunday morning Yvette and I pulled up to 418 Maple Run Road with a stack of flattened boxes and a roll of packing tape.

A silver sedan was parked in the driveway.

I knew it before I saw the pearl-gray interior.

It was Dalton's mother's car.

"She's early," Yvette said. "Do we leave?"

"No," I said. "I live here."

Two neighbors were already on their lawns pretending to water things.

I walked up the front path with my key out.

The key worked, and that felt like a small win.

Constance Lowell was standing in my kitchen in a cream blazer with a mug of tea in both hands.

She was fifty-nine and had run the Lowell family's charity luncheon for twenty years.

Every September she hugged me at that luncheon and told me I was the daughter she had never gotten to dress.

"Willa, sweetheart," she said now, and set the mug down and crossed the room with her arms open. "Look at you. You're so pale."

I stepped back before she reached me.

"I'm here for my things."

"Of course you are. Nobody is stopping you." She looked at Yvette's braid, then at the boxes. "Dalton told me you've had a shock. He's at the club. He thought it best to give you space."

"He thought that, did he?"

"Dear, you're pregnant. These are your hormones, and nobody blames you." She said it softly and kindly. "Come sit. Let me get you a ginger tea."

Someone was already filling the kettle.

Posy stood at the counter with her back to us.

She wore the same gray sweater she had worn while she addressed our invitations.

She did not turn around.

Constance went on talking.

"Whatever you think you found, the family will make it right. We always do. A wedding is three weeks away, and I will not have you upsetting yourself in a state like this."

"Constance," I said. "Dalton married her."

"He signed a form so a girl could see a doctor." She patted my arm. "A form is not a marriage, darling."

"It's a marriage in the county records."

"Records are made by clerks." She smiled. "Clerks make mistakes."

Yvette made a noise behind me that was not quite a word.

I looked at Constance's smile.

It had not changed once since I walked in, not when I said the name, not when I said the word marriage.

She didn't look at all surprised.

I picked up a box.

"I'm going upstairs."

"Take your time," Constance said. "Take whatever you need."

That also seemed to cost her nothing.

I went up and Yvette came after me.

In our bedroom I pulled my clothes off hangers and Yvette folded them into the boxes.

I took my mother's quilt from the end of the bed.

I took the framed photo of my dad from the dresser.

I took my cat's carrier out of the closet, and Biscuit stared at me through the grate and howled.

"You're a good boy," I told him. "We're going."

When I came back down the stairs with the carrier, the kitchen was empty except for Posy.

She stood by the counter with a cup of tea in her hands that she was not drinking.

Her face was very white.

She looked toward the front hall to see if Constance was gone, then spoke so low that I almost missed it.

"Don't sign anything he hands you."

"What?"

"Anything. Even if it's for the baby." She swallowed. "Please."

"What do you know about my baby?"

Her eyes dropped to my stomach, then jumped away.

"Nothing," she said. "I have to go."

"Posy."

"I'm sorry," she said, and I could not tell what for.

She put the cup in the sink and walked out through the back door.

Yvette came in with the last box.

"What did she say?"

"She said not to sign anything," I said. "I don't know why she would tell me that."

"Maybe she's not the villain."

"She's the wife."

"Both of those can be true."

We carried everything out to the car in four trips.

The neighbors on both sides stopped watering and openly watched.

Constance stood on the front step with her mug, still smiling.

"Do call us," she said. "Dalton is heartbroken."

I did not answer.

I was loading the carrier onto the back seat when I saw her silver sedan with the trunk open.

Inside it, lying flat on a folded blanket, was a yard sign.

It was white and red, with a smiling realtor's face on it.

FOR SALE.

Underneath, in bold letters, was the address of the house I had just walked out of.

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