Six Weeks After Giving Birth, I Discovered His Affair and Left With Our Son novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Welfare Check

In the public lobby Carter tells an officer his wife is unstable. Libby shows the feeding log, the video and the clean room, and a guest says she saw him with the woman. HOOK: the woman from the café hands Libby a card: she's Carter's lawyer.

I got to the lobby before the officer got to the front desk.

Taryn came down with me, carrying Charlie, and stood a little behind my shoulder.

Carter walked in last, in a clean shirt, with his face arranged into worry.

The lobby was not empty.

A couple sat by the window with coffee, a man in a golf jacket waited at the bell stand, and a woman in a green coat was reading at a side table.

Nate stood behind the front desk and watched without moving.

"Ma'am," the officer said to me. He was about forty and he looked tired. "I'm here for a welfare check. Your husband is concerned about you and the baby."

"Officer, my husband is a liar," I said, as calmly as I could. "But yes, please check."

"Libby," Carter said softly. "Don't do this."

He turned to the officer.

"She hasn't slept in weeks. She left the house last night without telling me. She took my son to a hotel."

"I told you where I was going."

"You didn't tell me anything."

"I told you at five o'clock, on the porch, with a suitcase in my hand."

"She's been very emotional," Carter said to the officer, in a low voice that carried across the whole lobby. "She cries all day. She's not herself since the birth. I'm afraid she'll hurt him by accident, from exhaustion."

The woman in the green coat looked up from her book.

"Sir," the officer said. "Let me talk to her."

He turned to me.

"Has anyone been harming the baby?"

"No."

"When did he last eat?"

I took out my phone and opened the feeding log.

"Seven forty this morning. Before that, five fifteen, two forty, midnight. Wet diapers, six in the last day. He's up four ounces since his checkup."

I held it out, and the officer read it.

"Can I see the room?"

"Yes."

Nate came around the desk.

"I'll take you up, officer. The room's quiet, the crib is a hotel bassinet we provided, and she's the only one who's been in it."

They went up together, and Taryn stayed with Charlie and me in the lobby.

Carter looked at me the whole time.

"You're embarrassing yourself," he said quietly.

"You're embarrassing yourself. You told them I was unstable while she was standing right there."

I nodded at Taryn.

Taryn looked down at Charlie and said nothing.

In ten minutes the officer came back with Nate behind him.

"The room's clean," the officer said. "The baby's fed and clean. There's a bottle prepared and the mother's rested enough to give me a time stamp for every feed. Sir, I don't see a welfare issue."

"She's not in her right mind," said Carter.

"Sir, she's a new mother who took her kid to a hotel after a fight. I can't do anything with that. There's no court order here, no abuse, no neglect."

"Then I'll get a court order."

"That's up to you."

"Excuse me," said a voice from the side table.

The woman in the green coat had closed her book and stood up.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't help listening. I was in the café yesterday morning." She looked straight at Carter. "That man was at the corner table with a woman who was not his wife. He kissed her in front of everybody. Then his wife came in with a baby strapped to her chest and told him to finish his business trip."

Nobody in the lobby moved.

The couple by the window put their cups down.

Carter's face went white.

"That's not relevant," he said.

"It seems relevant to me," the woman said, and sat back down.

The officer rubbed his forehead.

"Sir, this is a civil matter. If you want to proceed, you do it through a lawyer. Have a good day."

He nodded to me, nodded to Nate, and went out.

Carter turned toward the doors and stopped.

A woman was standing just inside the lobby with her hands in the pockets of a charcoal coat.

She had sleek dark hair, gray eyes and no expression at all.

It was the woman from the corner table.

"Carter," she said. "That was unnecessary. I told you to wait for the paperwork."

"Simone."

She turned to me.

"Mrs. Nordstrom, I'm sorry we're meeting like this. Nobody here is against you. Carter's very worried."

"Who are you?"

"Simone Mercier." She took a card from her coat and held it out. "I'm a family-law attorney."

I did not take it.

"You were kissing my husband."

"I'm representing your husband," Simone said, in the same pleasant voice. "What you saw at the café was a difficult personal moment, and I'm sorry you saw it. It doesn't change the fact that you left the marital home with a six-week-old and no income."

She put the card on the front desk.

"Please have your counsel contact me. I'd hate for this to get ugly."

Carter took her arm.

They walked out together through the lobby, past the couple, past the green coat, past Nate, who didn't look away from them once.

I picked up the card.

It said: Simone Mercier, Family Law, and under it, in smaller print, an address in downtown Denver.

Taryn put her hand on my back.

"Libby," she whispered. "He brought his own lawyer to a welfare check."

"Yes," I said. "He did."

Charlie woke up in her arms and began to cry.

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