Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,8

to being the mother that I was before. Or at least learn how to pretend better.” I kissed her cheek. “I’ll try my best not to be long, and if you get a phone call saying I’ve been arrested for punching a mother, the number for a good lawyer is on a pad by the phone.”

She smiled. “Got it. Love you.”

“Love you,” I said back. It was the rule in this house, that if anyone planned on leaving, those two words were the last things uttered. Since I’d screamed quite the opposite at David before he walked out of our lives forever.

3

“You can do this,” I whispered, staring up at the collection of brick buildings. The parking lot was full because I was late. All of the cars were new, obnoxious, and expensive. Mine was no different, since David upgraded our vehicles every five years or so. Such a thing had been insane to me when we first got married, but I’d known he’d come from money, from his clothes, his watch, the car he drove in college.

I didn’t know wealth. We were never poor, although I was sure our parents had plenty of worries and arguments about money. We never heard them, though. We only saw the happiness, the love and laughter, even if some of it was fake.

Both my parents worked their asses off to send both Alexis and myself to private schools they couldn’t afford. My mother got her real estate license once they understood how much it would cost. My father worked overtime at the factory he’d worked at ever since I could remember.

They taught us the importance of manners, of looking tidy, of being respectful to our elders. How to be smart with money—we both got jobs after school as soon as we turned sixteen. In short, they were great parents who furnished our lives with love and happiness and made sure we got a good enough education to get into Ivy League colleges on scholarships.

They’d been alive to see me get into Harvard, to meet David, to love their grandchildren. They’d supported me, even if they were the tiniest bit disappointed that I squandered the years of hard work to become a stay-at-home mother.

Mother. A term, a title, an identity I’d worn for almost two decades. It didn’t exactly fit perfectly, since I always doubted my mothering skills, but I sure as shit wore it better than ‘widowed mother’.

How had I got here?

Sitting in this car full of anger and sorrow.

It came down to one singular memory, assaulting me with its clarity.

That’s what all my memories were now. Assaults. Attacks. Barbed thoughts drawing blood, showing no mercy, taunting me with the fact David only existed in my mind, in photos on the walls.

I stared at the faint but definite plus sign on the stick I’d just peed on. My hand was shaking. My entire body was shaking. My mind was blank with fear.

Pregnant.

I couldn’t be.

I was on the pill. We were careful.

Of course, we’d talked about kids as I supposed every couple did when they were in love and planning their futures from a college dorm room. But that was, of course, after I graduated and got a job, got established at a reputable paper, after David finished law school and put the hard hours in at a good practice.

We’d get married at some point, despite the fact his mother would likely have something to say about that. She’d met me once and had sniffed out the middle class in me and turned her nose up at it. Of course, she’d been the pillar of good manners and was only mean in that polite rich woman way. I hadn’t said anything to David, but I didn’t need to. He’d been seething after we left their estate—yes, estate—and had threatened to disinvite her from the wedding if she treated me that way ever again.

Wedding, as in ours.

It was so hot, his fury, his passion for me, that I’d forced him to pull over and we’d fucked on the side of the road.

And now it was six weeks later and I was staring at the plus sign that symbolized all of our careful plans going up in flames.

“I-I’ll make an appointment at Planned Parenthood,” I whispered. I didn’t want to get rid of it, this tiny little thing inside me that was created with love and passion, that would have David’s eyes. I didn’t consider myself maternal up until this very moment and a longing for