Chapter 4
As though he had not spent the night with her.
As though she were not wearing my dead mother’s coat.
As though I were not carrying his daughter.
I stood.
Slowly.
My back ached.
My ankles were swollen.
My daughter pressed beneath my ribs.
Grant watched me with the same irritated expression he used when I struggled to get out of low chairs at restaurants.
“Emma.”
“I want her out of my house.”
“It’s my house too.”
“Then you can leave with her.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
A tiny flicker of satisfaction.
That was when I understood something else.
She believed she was winning.
Grant saw it too.
He turned on her.
“Go wait in the car.”
“What?”
“Vanessa.”
She folded her arms.
“I’m not going outside dressed like this.”
I looked at the coat again.
“Then take mine off.”
She stared at me.
Then she smiled.
It was small.
Cruel.
“I think we’re past pretending this is about a coat.”
The baby monitor had been on the counter between us.
Recording.
I had turned on its app twenty minutes before they arrived because Claire’s warning had frightened me enough to prepare.
Not because I expected violence.
Because I finally expected Grant to lie.
And witnesses remembered.
Even electronic ones.
I said, “You’re right.”
Grant stepped toward me.
“Emma, stop.”
I looked at Vanessa.
“What did he tell you?”
“Don’t,” Grant said.
Vanessa lifted her chin.
“That your marriage has been over for months.”
Grant’s face went still.
I nodded.
“And the baby?”
Her eyes dropped toward my stomach.
“He said you got pregnant to keep him.”
Something inside me broke.
Quietly.
Not my heart.
That had been breaking for months.
It was the last piece of shame I had been carrying for him.
I looked at Grant.
He knew.
He knew exactly what had disappeared from my face.
“Emma.”
I said, “When did you give her a key?”
He reached for the folder.
I moved it away.
His hand struck the mug instead.
Ceramic exploded across the floor.
Vanessa jumped.
I did not.
Grant pointed at me.
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“You think some divorce lawyer is going to take my daughter from me?”
“I think my lawyer is going to make sure she grows up somewhere people don’t throw things when they’re angry.”
His face twisted.
“Say one more word.”