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But she shrugs, as if surprise upgrades are something she’s accustomed to. The conductor extends her hand and takes my luggage, then helps me up the steps. She walks us through the train car, then across the gap between cars and into another, much nicer, newer looking car.
“Here’s your first-class sleeper car.”
She presses a button on her device and something prints out. She sticks the receipts inside a metal clip outside our room, and then opens the door, turning on the lights and showing us around. But my eye catches on the receipt. Our names are on each slip, along with the upgraded room charges. But at the bottom of the slip is a line that catches my eye. It simply saysPaid: Card ending in 8885, Carroll.
My stomach dips, and my cheeks flush hot. Derek did this?
Thoughts stir through my head, none of them sticking, but all of them building the level of confusion and frustration and anger that’s now coursing through me. It seems ridiculous. A man who I have mixed-up feelings for found out that I have to take a train home because I’m too pregnant to fly and paid to upgrade my seat. But the levels of betrayal hang thick, threatening to sink me as I stand in the hallway, both women staring at me as if waiting for me to say something.
“Megan? Will that do?”
“What?”
“I can come back later to make the beds,” the conductor says.
“Yes, fine,” I say.
“I’ll get out of your hair so you can rest. Just press that button right there if you need anything.”
The kind woman leaves, and Midge leans against the wall opposite the bench seating that looks like a surprisingly comfortable sofa.
“Derek did this.”
“Did he?”
“Did you tell him we had to take a train?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, unapologetic. “He had been texting with Bee, just making sure you were okay. When we didn’t make the flight, I let him know.”
My chest tightens. Bee had been texting with him. Behind my back.
“Now, before you go down that rabbit hole, take a breath. She wasn’t telling him anything that anyone looking at you from the sidewalk couldn’t see. So don’t be mad at her. She was only trying to do the right thing.”
“The right thing would’ve been to ask me before she talked to my baby daddy behind my back.”
“Come now, Megan, is that really all he is?”
She tsks her tongue.
“If that was all he was to you, you wouldn’t be this upset.” She tsks at her screen and then shows it to me. “I mean, would you look at that?”
I can’t believe what I’m looking at. It’s a selfie that Freddy took, his stupid grin taking up half of the screen. But very clearly, in the background, Derek is rocking a real live actual infant in what my baby book called a ‘football hold.’
“Before you get upset,” Midge says, looking at the screen once more with a little happyhumphand then darkening the screen. “You should know I’ve asked for updates. Don’t hold it against me if I enjoy receiving pictures of jacked, handsome men doing adorable things.”
My eyes widen. I’m too pregnant to unpack that.
“I’m trying to do the right thing here,” I say, sitting on the bench and leaning back against the padded seatback. “Setting boundaries and staying focused on the positive.”
“Those are admirable things. But it seems a little myopic to me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re not seeing the big picture. You’re not looking outside yourself. Tell me, have you asked him how he feels?”
“I think he’s made that apparent. He’s done nothing to prepare for this baby, and now I find out, through the tabloids, that he’s been frequenting hookers.”
“So you’ll rely on a tabloid newspaper to tell you what the man who loves you has been doing?”
