Chapter 3 - The Woman by the Silver SUV
I didn't move closer to the window at first. I didn't have to. The light in the entryway was so clean that morning it threw everything in the driveway into sharp relief, every line of the silver SUV parked at the curb and the woman standing beside the rear door.
She had long light hair and a dark coat that fell past her hips. She wasn't pacing or checking her phone. She just stood there, stationary, one hand resting on the roof of the car, looking toward our house like she had all the time in the world.
My baby shifted low and hard, and I put my hand under my belly without thinking.
Derek saw me looking. He turned his head just enough to follow my line of sight through the big window, then looked away fast. His jaw tightened. He lifted his left wrist and checked his watch, a quick flick he tried to make casual.
"You keep checking the time," I said.
"I'm not," he said.
"You just did."
He pushed his sunglasses up higher on his nose even though we were still inside. The entryway smelled like wood cleaner and the faint rubber of his suitcase wheels. The black duffel and the folder were still on the floor between us, exactly where I'd left them. He stepped around them like they weren't there.
I shifted my weight because my back was starting to ache from standing. The beige slip-ons made no sound on the wood. Outside, a delivery truck went past on our street and the woman by the SUV didn't even flinch. She tucked her hair behind one ear with her free hand and kept watching.
"That's her car, isn't it?" I asked.
Derek gripped the extended handle of the rolling suitcase. His knuckles went white around the black plastic. "Maya, don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't make this something it isn't right before I have to go."
I looked from him to the window again. The sun caught the windshield of the SUV and threw a bright bar across our floor. Dust moved in it. I could hear the soft hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen and a bird outside, and my own breathing getting shorter because the baby was sitting so low.
I had told myself I wouldn't plead. I'd already done that in the kitchen that morning when his phone lit up and he turned it face-down. I wasn't going to do it again with my hospital bag on the floor.
I kept my voice level. "I want one straight answer. Who is driving you today?"
He didn't answer right away. He glanced down at the folder by my feet, then at the duffel, then back at the door. For a second something crossed his face that wasn't control. It looked like calculation, like he was measuring how much the truth would cost him if he said it out loud in that entryway.
"It's just a ride," he said. "I told you. I need a couple days to clear my head before the baby comes."
"With her waiting outside our house?"
"She's not waiting for me," he said, too fast. "She's just— she's in the neighborhood."
I almost laughed, but it caught in my throat. My hand pressed harder into my side. "Derek. She's parked at our curb staring at our front door."
He checked his watch again. He couldn't help it. Then he adjusted his sunglasses with his other hand, a hard, annoyed gesture. The tension in his shoulders had moved up into his neck. The controlled look he always wore when he didn't want to fight was cracking at the edges.
"I have to go," he said.
He lifted the suitcase slightly to straighten the handle and tipped it back onto its wheels. The wheels made that low rolling sound on the wood floor. He took a step toward the open front door. Then another. He didn't look at the duffel. He didn't look at the papers.
"Derek," I said.
He stopped with one foot almost over the threshold. The daylight from outside cut across his navy polo and his khaki shorts. I could see the woman more clearly now past his shoulder. She had taken her hand off the roof and taken one step away from the SUV, toward our sidewalk.
May you like
He didn't turn around. He lifted the suitcase over the small lip of the doorway and crossed through.
I stayed where I was, alone in the bright entryway with the hospital bag at my feet and the folder of papers beside it, listening to his suitcase roll down our front walk toward her.
