Chapter 9
I got home at five thirty and cooked. That sounds small, but it mattered. I hadn't cooked there in almost a week.
I browned chicken in the cast iron, boiled pasta, opened a bag of salad. She came in at six oh five, changed out of scrubs into sweats, and stood in the doorway watching me.
"You cooked," she said.
"You said you were sick of takeout," I said. "Before any of this."
She smiled a little, first real one in days. "I did."
We ate at the small kitchen table. We talked about nothing important on purpose — the leak under the sink, the shop's late delivery, whether we needed new wipers. It felt strange and normal at the same time, like we were trying on an old shirt to see if it still fit.
After the plates were in the sink, she sat back down and folded her hands. "Can we talk now?" she said. "For real?"
"Yes," I said, sitting across from her. My phone was on the counter, not the table. That was intentional.
She took a deep breath. "I want to tell you the whole timeline without you having to pull it out of me."
"Okay," I said. "I'm listening."
"It started mid-January," she said, voice low. "Marcus brought samples on Tuesdays. He was charming. He complimented my charting, brought coffee for the office. Jeff liked him because he got us better pricing. I liked that someone noticed me at work."
I nodded once. I didn't interrupt.
"January twenty-seventh we had a late inventory night. Everyone left. He stayed to help count. One thing led to another in the supply room. I hated myself right after."
She stared at her hands, picking at that same cuticle until it bled a little.
"The second time was February twelfth, after the county meeting in Harrisburg. We both drove back. He texted me to stop for a drink. I shouldn't have gone."
I kept my hands still on the table.
"With you it was — we were trying, kind of, not really preventing. January sixteenth before any of it, then February ninth, then again the eighteenth after I'd already ended it with him. I told him the thirteenth I didn't want to see him again. He didn't like that."
"What did he do?" I asked.
"He started coming by more. Tuesdays and Thursdays. He'd stand too close at the counter. He told Jenna I was flirting with him, so Jenna wouldn't trust me. Then when I told him I was pregnant February twenty-seventh, he switched. He said if I told anyone he had pressured me, he'd tell Jeff I pursued him and made up the pressure to cover an affair."
I felt my throat get tight. "And the call?"
"February twenty-eighth, seven at night. He called my cell while I was still charting. He said Jeff already thought I was dramatic, that the county contract renewal was coming up, and Jeff would side with a vendor who saved them money over a tech who caused drama. He said —" She stopped, swallowed. "He said at one fifty-two, 'Tell anyone and I'll make sure Jeff writes you up for missing meds. You know how that looks for a pregnant tech.'"
The exact words I'd half-heard in my car came clear, spoken now in our kitchen in her shaking voice.
"He made it sound like you were stealing?" I asked.
"Like I was careless," she said. "Which I'm not. I've never missed a count."
I reached for my phone on the counter, checked the file was still there, then set it back down.
"Why didn't you come to me that night?" I asked, not accusing, just asking.
She looked up, tears now. "Because I'm scared it's his," she said, the same line from the night before, but louder, with her whole body behind it. "Because if it's his, you will leave, and I'll be alone with a baby that ties me to a man who threatened me. And if it's yours, I've already ruined us by not telling you sooner."
I let that sit.
"You're not alone right now," I said after a moment. "You're sitting at our table. That's real today."
She wiped her face with her sleeve. "Do you still want to be — are we still married after this?"
I thought about the dates, the recording, the HR office, the ultrasound photo.
"I don't know what married means after this yet," I said honestly. "But I know I don't want to make that decision based on Marcus's lies or on not knowing whose baby it is. I want to make it based on what you do now. Do you want to keep protecting him?"
She shook her head hard. "No. I don't. I tried because I was scared of losing my job before the baby comes. But I'm done covering for him."
"Okay," I said. "Then tomorrow we do this: we call a legal aid number first, not the sheriff, not HR. We ask what a recording made in Pennsylvania without the other person knowing can be used for. We ask how to file a vendor complaint outside Jeff's chain. And we ask about paternity options without risking the pregnancy."
"And if the lawyer says the recording can't be used?" she asked.
"Then it can't be used," I said. "But we still have the truth of what he said. Two of us heard it now. That's not nothing."
She stood, came around the table, and stopped a foot away, unsure if she could touch me. I stood too.
"Can I hug you?" she asked.
I nodded. She stepped in and I held her. She smelled like clinic soap and laundry detergent. Her shoulders shook once, then steadied.
At the door, before heading to the bedroom to get blankets — I was still sleeping on the couch — she paused.
"Ryan," she said. "If the test says it's his, will you stay?"
I looked at her a long time. The kitchen light was warm, the apartment quiet.
May you like
"I don't know yet," I said. "But I'll be at the next appointment either way. That's the promise I can keep tonight."
She nodded, accepting the boundary. I got the blanket from the hall closet, laid it on the couch, and left the phone on the kitchen counter where we both could see it, no longer hidden in a pocket, no longer a weapon on a diner table, just a thing we had to decide about together in the morning.
