My Husband Demanded a Paternity Test over Our Daughter's Red Hair, So I Left Him an Empty House novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Everything With My Name on the Receipt

Lydia empties the house on Maple Court while Judith watches and tells the street she is not herself. Daniel's truck pulls into the driveway and he asks where they are supposed to sleep.

The moving truck backed into the driveway on Maple Court at nine o'clock sharp.

Kate pulled up behind it in the flower van, with June asleep in her car seat in the back.

Ben was already waiting on the porch with a roll of packing tape and his husband's folding dolly.

He had taken the day off without being asked.

"Tell me what to lift," he said. "I'm very strong in a narrow range of ways."

I held up the folder of receipts.

"Everything with my name on the receipt," I said. "The list is on my phone. Start with the couch."

The front door opened before I could reach the bell.

Judith stood in the doorway in her cream cardigan with a wooden spoon in her hand. The smell of pot roast came out around her.

She had her own key. She had always had her own key.

"Lydia!" she said, and her whole face lit up. "You're home early! Why is there a truck?"

"I'm taking what I paid for, Judith."

The smile stayed on her face. Her eyes went to the truck, the two movers, and Ben's hair.

Across the street, a woman in a bathrobe had come out to get her newspaper and stopped on her lawn.

"Honey," Judith said, loudly, "you've just had a baby. You're exhausted. Come in and sit down."

"I'm fine."

"You're not yourself." She turned to the street and spoke to the whole block. "She's not herself. It's the hormones. Daniel and I are so worried about her."

The woman across the street lifted her phone.

I felt my face go hot.

Then I opened the folder.

"Couch," I read aloud, in a clear voice. "Navy sectional, bought in March, paid with my card. Here is the receipt."

I handed the page to the first mover.

"Dishwasher. Washer and dryer. The living room rug. The dining table and six chairs."

"You can't," Judith said. "That's Daniel's home."

"Then Daniel can tell me which of these he paid for." I held out the folder to her. "Take a look. His name isn't on any of them."

Judith didn't take it.

The movers walked past her with the couch.

For most of the morning I stood in the front hall and read receipts while strangers carried my house out the door.

Ben took the crib apart in the nursery. He did it gently, a screw at a time, and laid the pieces in a blanket.

"It's the one he built," he said, from the doorway.

"It's June's," I said. "The lumber was on my card. And she's sleeping in it."

Ben nodded and carried it out.

Kate walked through the house with June on one hip and a screwdriver in her free hand.

"Curtains," she said, and took down the living room rods.

"They're on the list," I said.

"Lightbulbs?"

"Daniel bought those."

"I'll leave him the lightbulbs," Kate said. "I'm a generous person."

Judith followed us from room to room, saying "Lydia, please" and "think of the baby" in a soft, pleading voice for the benefit of the open windows.

By the time the movers carried out the mattress, three more neighbors had come out onto their lawns.

When the house was empty, I stood in the kitchen.

My footsteps echoed on the tile.

The counters were bare. A fork lay on the floor beside the stove.

I took the hospital paper out of my purse. The doctor's name was on it, and the number.

I laid it flat in the middle of the counter.

Then I took off my wedding ring and set it in the bottom of the sink.

It rolled once and stopped beside the drain.

"Lydia." Judith had come up behind me. She spoke low now, so only I could hear. "You're making a mistake you can't undo."

"I know what I'm doing."

"Daniel will forgive you. He's a good man. He's willing to put this behind him."

I turned around and looked at her.

"He's willing to forgive me."

"Yes." She patted my arm. "If you come to your senses by Sunday."

I looked at her hand on my sleeve.

I thought about the blanket she had tucked around me in the hospital. How kind she had looked. How fast she had said that nobody in her family had red hair.

I took my arm back.

"Goodbye, Judith."

I walked out through the empty hall and down the porch steps.

The truck was loaded. The movers were closing the ramp.

Kate had June buckled into the van, and Ben was standing on the lawn with his hands in his sleeves.

Then a gray pickup turned onto Maple Court and slowed.

It pulled into the end of the driveway and stopped.

Daniel got out in his county jacket with his hard hat still on the seat beside him.

He looked at the truck. He looked at the bare front window, where there were no curtains.

He looked at me.

"Lydia," he said. "Where are we supposed to sleep?"

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