I Hid Your Triplets, Why Did They Crash Your Engagement novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Microphone
Teddy reads a DNA result into the microphone at Rafe's engagement party, and Margot pushes through three hundred guests to get her kids out; in the lobby Rafe asks if she ever got his letters.
My son tapped the microphone twice, the way he had seen the DJ do it at his cousin's wedding.
"Excuse me," he said. "I have an announcement."
Three hundred people in evening clothes stopped eating crab cakes.
I was standing in the ballroom doorway in my work scrubs, with a dog paw printed on the pocket.
My phone was still open to a text from my mother.
It said: Don't be angry. Come to the Hartwell now.
My three children stood on a little stage beside the string quartet.
He wore his clip-on tie and held an index card. His sister had on her green dress and the shoes she refused to take off. His brother held a paper coffee cup in both hands.
Next to them, with a champagne glass in his hand, stood Rafe Hartwell.
I hadn't seen him in six years, except in the one photograph I kept in a drawer.
He had grey at his temples now.
I started walking.
"My name is Teddy Eastlake," Teddy read, "and I am five and three quarters."
Somebody laughed.
"We took a test. Ivy planned it, Rory kept the evidence, and Grandma mailed it. The test says Mr. Hartwell is our father."
He turned the card over and squinted at the back.
"It says ninety-nine point nine nine percent. That is almost all of it."
Nobody laughed after that.
A woman beside me whispered, "Whose children are those?"
I did not answer her. I was already pushing past a waiter and a tower of champagne glasses.
My daughter, Ivy, walked up to Rafe and held out a white envelope with both hands.
"You can check it," she said. "It has a stamp from the lab. Mom says if something has a stamp, you can't argue."
Rafe took the envelope.
He looked at Ivy's face, then Teddy's, then Rory's. They all had his grey eyes.
The woman standing next to him wore a white dress and a square diamond ring. She turned, saw me, and her face went through three expressions before it settled on relief.
It was Daphne.
My best friend since college crossed the ballroom floor in four fast steps and took both my arms.
"Mags," she said. "Thank God you're here. Don't say anything yet. Let me handle it."
I stared at her left hand.
"You're marrying him?"
"I was going to tell you. Not like this." Her eyes filled. "Please. You know I never told a soul where you live."
I did know that.
She had texted me last week, the way she did on the first of every month for six years: Still quiet here. Stay where you are.
She had not mentioned a ring.
At the front table, an older woman in pearls stood up so fast her chair fell over.
"Security," she said. "Now."
Rafe tore the envelope open and read the page.
I watched him read it twice.
His hand with the paper started to shake, and the string quartet stopped playing in the middle of a bar.
"Margot," he said.
It was the first time I had heard him say my name in six years.
I did not answer him.
I lifted Ivy onto my hip and took Rory's free hand.
"Teddy," I said. "Bring the microphone back to the man at the stage."
"He said I could keep it."
"Teddy."
He handed it to a startled man in a headset.
I looked once at Daphne, who was crying and nodding at me.
Then I looked at Rafe.
"Congratulations on your engagement," I said.
So I took my children and walked out.
Nobody stopped me. Three hundred people moved aside and let a vet tech in paw-print scrubs carry a little girl out of their party.
In the lobby I buckled my coat over Ivy's dress and knelt to zip Rory's jacket. My fingers would not work.
"Mommy, are you mad?" Teddy asked.
"Yes."
"Is it a little mad or a big mad?"
"Ask me in the car."
I was almost at the revolving door when I heard fast footsteps on the marble.
Rafe stopped in front of me, out of breath, the lab report crushed in his fist and his tie pulled crooked.
He did not look at me first. He looked at the three of them.
Then he looked at me, and his voice came out rough and low.
"Margot. Did you ever get my letters?"
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