Page 42 of The Best Shot

“Okay,” she said softly.

The espresso machine hissed.

Then she sat back, one hand still wrapped around her cup. “There’s more. The affair is new. He’s never done it before, as far as I know. But the money…” She shook her head once. “That’s been going on longer.”

I waited.

She laughed again, the same dry humorless sound, but her eyes watered. “We’d been saving. For years, Yasmine. For the house and for—” She gestured at her stomach. “For this. For a life that wasn’t in your mother’s guest room.” Her hands tightened around the mug. “He took it. All of it. Didn’t ask. Didn’t tell me. Just took it.”

My stomach turned. “What did he do with it?”

“Day trading.” She said it like a curse. “He watched some videos online, decided he was going to make us rich and be his own boss.”

“How much?”

“Enough.” She met my eyes. “Enough that we’re not buying a house anymore. Enough that I can’t afford first and last on an apartment. Enough that I’m five months pregnant and sleeping on Crystal’s couch because my husband gambled away our future without asking if I minded.”

“When did you find out?”

“After the other woman called. I went looking. Figured if he was lying about that, what else.” She shrugged. A tired gesture. “Found the account statements. Confronted him.”

“CeeCee—”

“He lost sixty thousand dollars, Yasmine.” Her voice cracked for the first time. “Sixty thousand. And when I told him I was leaving, he said it was my fault for not being supportive.”

I didn’t have words. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to need them.

“I told your mother that part too.” She paused. “You know what she said?”

I could guess.

“She said marriages go through hard times. That money comes and goes and I should think about the baby. About what’s best for the family.”

“She shouldn’t—” I stopped. “He shouldn’t—” Nothing I could say touched it. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” she said, looking away.

“I’m still sorry.” I set my cup down. “Where are you staying?”

“My friend Crystal’s couch.”

“For how long?”

“As long as she’ll let me.”

“And the pregnancy?”

Her hand went to her stomach. “Doctor wants me resting. Less stress.” Her look said that was funny in the least funny way possible.

She didn’t believe me.

And suddenly I was ten again, seeing a woman in a blue dress in the church fellowship hall and not understanding why my father’s hand was on her hip. The look on my mother’s face when I told her what I’d seen.

The offer was out my mouth in the next breath. “Come stay with me.”

She blinked. “What.”

“I have a spare room.”