They Threw a Baby Shower for His Mistress in My House novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Welcome, Baby Weatherby
Claire comes home early on her anniversary to pink balloons, her husband's pregnant mistress in her dead mother's necklace and forty guests staring at her, and she takes the necklace back and orders them all out of her house. The officer she calls reads the deed and tells her the owner of record is asking her to leave.
I got home from my nursing conference a day early, on our sixth anniversary, with my husband's favorite tiramisu in a white bakery box.
There were pink balloons tied to my porch rail.
My plan was to put the cake on the kitchen table and wait for him in the dark.
His text from that morning was still open on my phone.
"My mom's borrowing the house Saturday for her book club, nothing for you to deal with. Enjoy Denver. Happy anniversary, love you."
I had read it twice on the plane and felt lucky.
I pushed open my front door.
Forty people stood in my foyer holding paper plates.
A banner over the staircase said WELCOME, BABY WEATHERBY in pink foil letters.
My mother-in-law was behind the table in her cream cardigan, cutting a sheet cake into neat squares for an old man in a wheelchair.
My husband, Carlton, stood next to a woman in a pink wrap dress, with his hand on the small of her back.
She was about five months pregnant.
Around her neck, resting on her collarbone, was my mother's moonstone necklace.
My mother wore it every day for thirty years.
The last time I had seen it, it was in a cedar box in her bedroom upstairs.
The bakery box slipped out of my hands.
The tiramisu hit the marble and slid, and a woman near the door stepped back to save her shoes.
"Oh my God," said my sister-in-law, Teagan.
She swung her phone toward me, the ring light glowing on its clip.
"Guys. Guys. The wife is here. Say hi, everybody, this is the wife."
Forty faces turned to me.
Not one of them looked sorry.
My mother-in-law, Diane, set down the knife and came across the foyer with her arms open.
"Claire, sweetheart. You're early."
"Diane."
"We were going to tell you tonight, over dinner. Carlton wanted to do it gently."
Her voice was warm and even, the voice she used at hospital fundraisers.
Carlton opened his mouth.
"Claire, please don't make this ugly in front of people."
I looked at the woman beside him.
She had straight dark hair and pale gray eyes, and she was holding the pendant between two fingers.
"Take that off," I said.
"It was given to me," she said.
"Jessa, hush," Diane said.
Her name was Jessa.
I had never heard it before, and the whole room had.
"Take it off," I said again, "or I will."
Jessa looked at Diane.
Diane gave a small nod.
Jessa lowered her chin and turned her back to me, and she held up her hair.
Her hands shook.
The clasp was stiff, the way it always was, and I had to pinch it twice.
When the chain came loose I closed my fist around it.
The moonstone was still warm from her skin.
"Is that necessary?" Teagan said, filming my hand. "Babe, that is a pregnant woman."
"Stop recording," I said.
"It's a public livestream. I have eleven thousand people watching."
"Then they can hear this."
I turned to the room, and I spoke to the phone, and I spoke to every person holding a plate.
"My name is Claire Ames Weatherby. This is my mother's house, and she left it to me."
"Nobody here asked my permission to be in it."
"I'm giving you one minute to leave, and then I'm calling the police."
So I stopped asking.
A man by the stairs laughed.
Diane smiled at him, and then at me.
"Sweetheart, no one is leaving. This is a family celebration."
I took out my phone and dialed 911.
I put it on speaker and held it up so Teagan's lens could see the screen.
"Police, fire or medical?" the dispatcher said.
"Police," I said. "I need people removed from my home."
The first guests were already moving.
Coats came off hooks.
A woman in a green dress picked up her purse and went out past me without looking up.
Within a few minutes the foyer was nearly empty.
Pink balloons bobbed on the porch where the door stood open.
Teagan was the last to go, still narrating.
Diane stayed where she was.
Carlton stayed beside Jessa.
I stood in the middle of the spilled tiramisu with my mother's necklace in my hand, and nobody in my family would meet my eye.
The officers came in under ten minutes.
There were two of them, young, polite, and one of them stopped at the pink banner and read it.
"Ma'am, you called about trespassers?"
"They're in my house. I'm the owner."
Diane stepped forward and held out a manila folder.
"Officer, I think this will clear it up."
The older officer read the first page slowly and then the second.
He looked at me, and his voice went careful.
"Mrs. Weatherby, county records show this property transferred three weeks ago to Weatherby Family Holdings."
"That's not possible."
"Your signature is on it. The owner of record is asking you to leave."
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