3: 3
My mother grabbed the phone first.
"You misread it."
She looked flustered and shoved it into her bag without even shutting off the screen.
I stared at her. "Nellie's pregnant?"
My father rapped his chopsticks hard against the rim of his bowl. "Nellie's stomach's been off lately, she went in for some bloodwork, that's all. Stop chasing after it and asking nonsense."
"Then why did the notice go to Charles's phone?"
"It's got nothing to do with you."
The birthday dinner broke up in a hurry.
My parents didn't trust me on my own, so they insisted on hauling me back to the Matthews estate with them.
I sat on the living room sofa for two hours, my ankle swollen and throbbing until it went half numb.
At eleven at night, the front door finally opened.
Nellie walked in, her trench coat rumpled, the cuffs carrying the smell of hospital disinfectant.
Charles trailed behind her, held up by his assistant, his face still pale.
When she saw me sitting in the living room, Nellie's steps stalled.
I ignored the warning look from my parents and asked her straight out. "You're pregnant?"
She was silent for two seconds. She didn't deny it.
"Yes."
"It wasn't confirmed yet. I was afraid you'd read too much into it, so I didn't tell you."
"Afraid I'd read too much into it, or afraid I'd find out?"
Charles saw the mood turn and his eyes went red at once.
"Chris, whatever's wrong, it's all my fault. It's the middle of the night, please don't fight with Nellie over me—"
Nellie said nothing.
I took out the project file. "I can hand off Cloudperch for seven days. But starting today, stop using Nellie to push me around over anything to do with Charles."
My father sneered. "What gives you the right to make decisions for Nellie?"
"The fact that I'm her husband."
My mother spoke up suddenly. "Chris, Nellie's carrying a baby. Having an extra person around to look after her makes things easier, and Charlie's family. Don't be so petty."
I looked around the room at all of them, and it came to me that they'd worked this out long ago.
I was just the last to know.
Nellie took hold of my wrist. "Let's go home first."
On the way back, she drove herself, and Charles sat in the back seat.
Passing a baby store, he suddenly had the driver pull over.
"We still don't know if the baby can be kept. I only want to have a look, I won't buy anything."
Nellie checked the time. "Ten minutes."
I sat in the car, my ankle throbbing in waves.
Twenty minutes later, they still hadn't come out.
I went in on my crutches and saw Nellie holding a pair of pale yellow baby shoes.
Charles stood beside her, smiling. "You said before, a daughter should wear yellow, like the sun."
She had said that line once. To me.
Two years ago, when she was pregnant, she'd picked out a pair of yellow shoes, glowing with happiness, saying our daughter was sure to be like the sun.
Then came the car accident. I lost the ability to have children saving her, and the baby didn't make it either.
She packed away every last piece of the baby's things and never brought it up again.
I thought she was afraid of hurting me.
It turned out she had simply handed that hope, whole and untouched, to another man.
Nellie turned her head, saw me, and hurried over. "How did you get in here?"
"My foot hurts."
She bent to check the cast. "I'll take you to the hospital."
But Charles came over with the baby shoes. "Don't get the wrong idea, Chris. I just picked these out. Nellie only said they looked nice."
Nellie moved to block my view of him. "Charlie didn't mean anything by it. Don't make a scene in front of everyone."
I raised my hand and slapped her.
The store went silent in an instant.
Nellie turned her face aside, and only after a long moment did she look back at me.
"Feel better now?"
"No."
I reached for the shoes, and Charles instinctively flinched back.
In the tug of it, a prenatal report slipped to the floor.
In the line for the father's name, two words were written, clear as day.
Charles Matthews.
