His Wife Her Secret Their Regret novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Connie's Spare Room

Diana sleeps above the diner while Dean waits in his truck, and Connie says the whole table knew.

I did not go home.

I drove to the Gravel Diner on Front Street and parked behind it, and I sat with the engine off until my hands stopped shaking.

Connie's truck pulled in beside mine four minutes later.

She got out with her apron still on and tapped my window with one knuckle.

"Upstairs," she said. "The bed's made. It's always made."

I followed her up the back stairs to the small apartment over the kitchen, where she kept a cot and a hot plate for anyone in the club who needed a night away from home.

I had never needed it.

I sat on the edge of the cot with my coat on.

Connie put a mug of tea in my hands and sat down on the only chair.

"You knew," I said.

"I knew."

"For how long?"

She took off her reading glasses and cleaned them on her apron, which was what she did when she didn't want to answer.

"Since April," she said. "Delilah came in for a slice of pie, three months along and hiding it under a big sweater. Dean was in the next booth. He paid for her pie."

"That's all?"

"That was all I saw. I asked Vernon about it that Sunday."

I set the mug down.

"What did Vernon say?"

"That it was family business, and Diana has had enough this year, and the table keeps its mouth shut until she's stronger."

Down in the street, a truck door slammed.

I went to the window.

Dean's pickup was parked at the curb under the streetlight, with the engine off and the dome light on.

He was behind the wheel with both hands on top of it, looking up at the building.

"He followed you," Connie said.

"He doesn't know which window is mine."

"He doesn't need to. He's a Ruskin. He'll sit there until you come down."

"Then he'll sit."

My phone buzzed on the cot.

It was a text from Delilah: Please let me explain. It isn't what you think.

I turned the phone face down.

"I want the date," I said. "I want to know what day it started. I don't care how it sounds."

Connie put her glasses back on.

"I only know what I saw."

"Then tell me what you saw."

She sighed and sat forward with her elbows on her knees.

"Dean carried groceries up to her second-floor apartment on Pine Street. I saw it from the diner window in March. I told myself it was what you said, a favor for your sister."

"I did say that."

"You said it at the Christmas dinner, in front of everyone. You said, I'm so grateful he checks on her."

My face went hot.

I had said it, and Dean had squeezed my shoulder under the table, and Vernon had gone on cutting his turkey.

"Everybody sat there while I thanked him," I said.

"Not me," Connie said. "I was in the kitchen. That's why I stayed there."

I laughed, and it came out wrong, and she handed me a paper napkin.

"Diana, I'm going to say one more thing and then I'll get you a plate."

"Say it."

"This is worse than you think. I would not tell you that if I wasn't sure."

"Worse than a baby named Wyatt?"

"Worse than a baby," she said. "He paid her rent for two years, honey."

The room went very still.

"Two years," I said.

"Eight hundred and fifty a month. Your name is on the check."

"My name?"

"It's the joint account. You sign the shop's books every Friday."

I had signed them every Friday.

I never read the lines, because Dean always put the pen in my hand and a coffee beside it and told me it was only routine.

I put my forehead on my knees.

Connie rubbed circles on my back, the way my grandmother used to.

"He's going to want to talk," she said. "I can send him home."

"No."

I sat up.

"Let him sit there all night. Let him see which light stays on."

She looked at me for a while.

"And in the morning?"

I took the folded paper out of my coat pocket and pressed it flat on my knee.

I did not open it.

"In the morning," I said, "I'm going to find out what else I signed."

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