I Lost to My Husband's Ex Twelve Times—Then Found Out His Coin Had No Heads novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Thirteenth Toss
On her birthday Hazel loses the coin toss and leaves the restaurant alone, then learns her lease lists only Neil and Danica.
On my twenty-ninth birthday, my husband took me back to the restaurant where he had proposed, and pulled out a coin to decide who held my paycheck.
He held my chair first, and he smiled the whole time, in front of our waiter and the couple at the next booth.
Danica sat beside him, because Danica came to every toss.
She was Neil's ex-wife, and she kept our household budget.
"Call it, Hazel," she said, in her warm voice. "Heads, you hold the card tonight."
I called heads. I had called heads for twelve months in a row.
The coin spun on the white tablecloth, and Neil slapped his palm over it.
He lifted his hand and said, "Tails."
"Oh, sweetheart." Danica patted my wrist. "Next month."
She picked up the bank card from beside my plate and put it in her purse.
Every dollar I earned at the catering kitchen went into that account.
In return I got twenty dollars a day for groceries, and a text to Danica for anything else.
Neil had told me it was temporary, because she'd been through so much with the divorce.
He had a kind way of saying things like that, with his arm around my shoulders.
On the table, his phone buzzed.
He turned it face down without looking at it, which he always did.
"We should go," he said. "Danica's parents are expecting us."
"It's my birthday."
"And you ordered dessert," Danica said, and laughed. "The budget has a line for birthdays, and you've used it. Stay and enjoy the cake. I'll settle up on my way out."
Neil stood and held her coat for her.
I sat alone at the table with a slice of chocolate cake and one lit candle.
I watched them cross the dining room, her arm through his.
Neil was already checking his watch.
He drove out of town every second Saturday to see a client, and he always came home too tired to talk.
I'd stopped asking about it months ago.
The waiter came to my table a minute later. He was young, and he looked embarrassed.
"Ma'am, I think your husband dropped this."
He set a coin in my palm.
I turned it over, and then I turned it over again.
Both sides were tails.
I closed my fingers around it.
It was not bad luck, and it had never been bad luck.
Neil had never once let me win.
I took out my phone and called him.
Danica answered, because Neil's phone was in her hand.
"Hazel, he's driving. What is it?"
"I want a divorce," I said.
Nobody said anything for a second. Then she laughed, easy and bright.
"Oh, here we go. Neil, she's doing the divorce thing again."
I heard him sigh.
"It's one coin toss, Hazel," he said. "You can try again next month."
He hung up.
The manager let me stay at the table without being rushed.
He brought me a glass of water, and he didn't say anything about the bill.
Danica didn't pay it until the staff were stacking chairs.
By then the cake was cold and the candle had burned down into the frosting.
I blew out the stub of the candle myself, and then I went home.
At our building, my key card flashed red.
I tried it twice more, and then I stood in the cold with my bag against my chest and read the message that had just come into our group chat.
Neil wrote: "Danica forgot her visitor pass, so I gave her the spare card. She told the front desk you'd lost yours and had it shut off. Get a new one tomorrow."
The card was in my bag. It had been there all night.
I took a photo of it and sent it to him.
He wrote back: "She got mixed up. Ask the doorman to let you in. Please don't start another fight."
I didn't answer.
I found the lawyer a catering client had once recommended to me, and I typed her a message with my thumbs shaking.
"My name is Hazel Entwistle. I need to end my marriage. Please tell me what to do."
So I stepped out of it, right there on the sidewalk, before I knew whether I could.
The night doorman didn't recognize me. He asked me to sit on the bench while he checked the lease.
I sat there holding the coin until he came back out with his tablet.
"Ma'am, I'm sorry," he said. "The lease lists two people in that apartment. Neil Gerrard and Danica Gerrard."
He looked at me.
"It doesn't have your name on it at all."
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