The Wife Isn't Me novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Philippa

The lens stayed on me.

Andrew put the dish towel down, walked out his front door and crossed the cobbles in his socks.

He stood in front of the gray sedan and photographed its license plate with his phone.

Then he knocked on the driver's window with one knuckle.

The man in the ball cap dropped the camera and pulled out so fast he clipped the curb.

Andrew came back inside and handed me his phone.

"For your binder," he said. "Under bad guy stuff."

"You read my tabs."

"Your tabs are very clear."

The car came back twice that week.

Once outside Trish's house in Hampden. Once outside the drugstore.

I photographed it both times and printed the pictures at the library.

On Wednesday a letter came for me at the birth center.

Thick cream envelope. No stamp. Hand delivered.

Andrew held it up to the light before he gave it to me, which made me laugh for the first time in days.

Inside was one card, in slanted, careful handwriting that wasn't Oscar's.

Friday, 10 a.m. The stone church on Roland Avenue. Third pew from the back, left side. I'll be alone. P.W.

"It's a trap," Trish said.

"It's a church," Andrew said.

"Churches can be traps. Have you met my mother?"

I went.

Trish drove and waited in the parking lot with the engine running.

The church was cold and mostly empty, with old ladies lighting candles near the front.

Philippa Wentworth was in the third pew from the back, left side.

Cream cashmere wrap. Pearl studs. Platinum hair in a perfect bob.

Her belly was smaller than mine, and she held it.

I sat down at the other end of the pew.

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