Chapter 3 - My Favorite People
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The photograph remained on my phone until the screen dimmed.
I tapped it awake.
There they were again.
Evan.
Paige.
Helen Mercer.
Brooke Mercer.
Four smiling people beneath the high glass ceilings of O'Hare International Airport.
Four people who knew I had just lost a pregnancy.
Four people who hadn't thought I deserved even one empty seat beside them.
I enlarged Brooke's caption.
Charleston weekend with my favorite people.
I read it twice.
Then I opened my contacts and called Leah Ortiz.
Leah had been my best friend since graduate school, when we'd spent our weekends measuring crooked old houses and arguing about whether historic buildings deserved to be saved.
She knew me before Evan.
Before marriage.
Before fertility appointments consumed my calendar.
Before I started introducing myself as Evan Mercer's wife instead of Rachel Bennett, the woman who could walk into a neglected hundred-year-old house and imagine everything it might become.
She answered on the second ring.
"Hey, stranger."
I tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
"Rachel?"
My throat tightened.
"Can you come over?"
Her voice changed immediately.
"What's wrong?"
"I can't explain it on the phone."
"Are you safe?"
I looked down at the medical supplies beside me.
"I think so."
"Are you alone?"
"Yes."
"I'm coming."
She didn't ask another question.
Thirty-five minutes later, Leah was kneeling on my bathroom floor.
She had arrived carrying soup, electrolyte drinks, a pharmacy bag, and the kind of anger that makes a person dangerously quiet.
She looked at the yellow onesie beside my knee.
Then at the bloodstained towel I had forgotten to move.
"Rachel."
I shook my head.
"Don't."
She sat beside me.
"Okay."
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Then I handed her my phone.
She studied the photograph.
Her mouth opened slightly.
"Tell me that isn't Evan."
"It's Evan."
"And that's Paige?"
I nodded.
"His mother is there?"
"Yes."
"And Brooke?"
I nodded again.
Leah looked toward the ceiling.
"I'm going to need you to explain why your husband is on vacation with his mistress while you're sitting here."
"He says it's business."
She held the phone closer.
"Business must be going well if champagne is part of the boarding process."
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Then a cramp moved through me, and my expression changed.
Leah immediately set the phone down.
"How much have you been bleeding?"
I answered honestly.
She asked when I had last eaten and whether I felt faint.
When I admitted I had barely eaten since the previous afternoon, she helped me into bed and called the clinic with me.
Dr. Foster's nurse reviewed my symptoms and told us which warning signs would require urgent medical attention.
She also made me promise to call back if anything worsened.
Leah stayed beside me while I ate half a bowl of soup.
Only after I had taken my medication and rested did she ask what I wanted to do about Evan.
"I don't know."
"Do you want to call him?"
"I already did."
"Did he answer?"
I shook my head.
"He texted me from the airport."
I showed her the message.
Boarding now. Please don't start anything with my family. We'll talk when I get home.
Leah read it.
Then she read it again.
"Start anything?"
I looked at the photograph.
"Apparently, my grief is bad for the vacation atmosphere."
She placed my phone face down.
"Your husband doesn't get to decide when you're allowed to hurt."
That sentence made me cry.
Not because it was profound.
Because somebody had finally spoken to me as though my pain was real.
That evening, Leah helped me downstairs.
I sat at the kitchen island where Paige had been sitting only days before.
The memory made me nauseous.
I wiped the marble counter with a paper towel even though it was already clean.
Leah watched without commenting.
Then my phone chimed.
A notification from our joint credit card.
I opened it automatically.
For eight years, I had handled most of our household finances because I was better at organizing bills and keeping records.
I also ran a small independent architectural restoration business, which meant spreadsheets, invoices, and project budgets were ordinary parts of my life.
Evan earned more than I did during good years.
I managed money more carefully.
That had always been our arrangement.
The notification showed a charge from an upscale Charleston hotel.
I frowned.
"What's wrong?" Leah asked.
"Evan said the company was paying for his trip."
"Maybe he used the wrong card."
I opened the full statement.
Airline tickets.
Four passengers.
Airport lounge access.
A hotel deposit.
A restaurant reservation secured with a payment authorization.
All of it charged to our joint account.
I opened our savings dashboard.
One account immediately caught my attention.
We called it the House Fund.
It held money we'd saved to repair the original windows, replace the aging furnace, and finish the upstairs bathroom.
My parents had helped us make the down payment on the house eight years earlier.
After that, I had paid a substantial share of the mortgage and many of the renovation expenses myself.
The house wasn't just where I lived.
It represented nearly a decade of work, sacrifice, and plans.
The House Fund had contained a little more than thirty thousand dollars the previous month.
Now it contained less than eight thousand.
My fingers went cold.
"Leah."
She leaned closer.
I clicked the transaction history.
There it was.
A transfer of $23,600.
The destination was an unfamiliar business account.
MERCER CHARLESTON VENTURES LLC.
The transfer had occurred two days before my appointment.
Before I knew our baby was gone.
Before I found Paige in my kitchen.
I stared at the name.
"What is Mercer Charleston Ventures?" Leah asked.
"I don't know."
"Is that his business?"
"He has a consulting company, but I've never heard that name."
I opened the transfer details.
Evan had authorized it through our banking profile.
I thought of him standing in our kitchen, calmly making another woman coffee.
I thought of him telling me that Charleston was a business opportunity.
I thought of the family photograph.
Something shifted in my mind.
The trip hadn't been an impulsive escape from a difficult marriage.
Money had been moving before the hospital.
Plans had been made.
Reservations had been arranged.
And I had been standing in the middle of my own life without knowing what was happening behind my back.
"Screenshot everything," Leah said.
I did.
I downloaded the bank statements and sent copies to a secure personal email account.
I didn't know yet which transactions I had the legal right to challenge.
I didn't even know whether the money could be recovered.
But for the first time that week, I felt capable of doing something besides surviving the next hour.
At 9:14 that night, Evan finally called.
I watched his name illuminate the screen.
Leah looked at me.
"You don't have to answer."
I thought about the ultrasound room.
The empty heartbeat.
The yellow onesie.
Then I thought about $23,600 disappearing from our savings.
I answered.
"Hello, Evan."
His voice was cheerful.
Too cheerful.
"Hey, Rachel. We just got settled."
I heard laughter behind him.
A woman's voice.
Paige.
"Are you feeling better?"
I looked at the statement.
"No."
He sighed.
"Rachel, come on."
I closed my eyes.
"Who is paying for Charleston?"
A pause.
"What?"
"The flights, Evan. The hotel. The money transferred into Mercer Charleston Ventures."
His voice lost its warmth.
"Why are you going through our accounts?"
I looked at Leah.
She was already reaching for a notebook.
"Because they're our accounts."
"That money is part of an investment."
"An investment you didn't tell me about?"
"It's complicated."
I had begun to hate those words.
"What exactly are you investing in?"
He didn't answer.
Then I heard another voice.
Helen's.
"Is that Rachel?"
Evan covered the phone poorly.
"Yeah, Mom."
Helen said something I couldn't quite hear.
But I heard the next sentence clearly.
"Tell her we'll deal with it after the weekend."
I stared at the wall.
Deal with it.
I was no longer a wife.
I was a problem waiting until Monday.
"Evan," I said quietly.
"What?"
"When you come home, there are going to be some changes."
He gave a short laugh.
"Don't be dramatic."
I ended the call.
Leah watched me place the phone on the table.
For several seconds, the kitchen was silent.
Then I opened my laptop.
I began making a list.
Not of the things I had lost.
Of the things I still needed to protect.
May you like
And at the top of that list, I wrote one word.
Home.
