Chapter 4
The house felt like a tomb that had been broken into by grave robbers.
Every object I touched felt contaminated. The coffee maker on the kitchen counter—bought with money from an account that was now overdrawn. The nursery rug rolled up against the wall—purchased while our mortgage was already sixty days past due.
Adam sat on the couch in the living room now, looking like an abandoned child. His face was blotchy, his button-down shirt wrinkled from where he had been tugging at the collar.
"I need your keys," I said, standing at the kitchen island.
He looked up, dazed. "What?"
"Your truck keys and your house key. Leave them on the counter."
"Natalie, you can't kick me out! This is my house too!"
"The bank owns this house, Adam. Because you decided that degenerate offshore bookies were more important than putting a roof over your daughter's head." I pointed toward the entryway. "Get a duffel bag. Pack three days of clothes. And get out."
"Where am I supposed to go?"
"I don't care. Go to your mother's. Go sleep in your truck until the repo man comes for it. You are not sleeping under this roof tonight."
"Nat, please! If I leave, I don't know what I'll do! I’m sick! Can't you see that? It’s an addiction! It’s an illness!" He fell forward onto his knees again, trying to crawl toward me across the living room carpet. "You wouldn't throw me out if I had cancer! This is a disease!"
"An illness?" I looked down at him, feeling a disgust so visceral it tasted like copper on the back of my tongue. "Cancer doesn't look its eighty-year-old uncle in the eye and lie about an unborn child dying to steal his pension. Cancer doesn't steal baby shower envelopes off a gift table."
"I didn't take those envelopes! My mom did!"
"Because she knew you were going to!" I barked. "Get up. Pack your bag. If you aren't out of this house in fifteen minutes, I'm calling the sheriff's department."
"On what grounds?" he hissed, a flash of ugly defiance breaking through his pathetic act. "My name is on the deed!"
"On the grounds of domestic fraud. On the grounds that my aunt and uncle will be at the precinct tomorrow morning filing grand larceny reports for the money you took under false pretenses."
That broke him. The defiance evaporated like mist. He knew as well as I did that Robert and Carol had check stubs, wire transfers, and text messages from him detailing my fictional medical emergencies. If they went to the county prosecutor, he wasn't just broke—he was a felon.
Without another word, Adam dragged himself up the stairs.
I listened to his footsteps above me. The heavy creak of the floorboards in our master bedroom. The sound of drawers sliding open and slamming shut. The metallic clatter of wire hangers being stripped from the closet.
Every sound drove another nail into the casket of the life I thought I had.
Ten minutes later, he came back down. He carried a single gray canvas gym bag over his shoulder. He took his key ring out of his pocket, pried the brass house key off the ring with his thumbnail, and set it on the marble counter next to the owl magnet from the fridge.
He stopped at the door. He turned, looking at me with swollen, miserable eyes.
"I never meant to hurt you, Natalie. I swear to God, in my head, I was going to fix it all. I was going to be the hero."
"You were never a hero, Adam," I said quietly, watching him from across the kitchen. "You were just a coward who got lucky until today."
He flinched, pulled open the front door, and walked out into the falling twilight.
I stood there until I heard his truck engine sputter to life, rumble down the street, and fade away completely into the distance.
May you like
Then, and only then, did I slide down the side of the kitchen island to the floor, pull my knees to my chest as best I could around my swollen belly, and let the screams out.
***
