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A baby’s teary sobs broke the silence. For a moment, I imagined the sound came from Casey and Kyle’s unborn child, sensing the mess he or she would be born into.
“Mommy? Casey?” a tiny voice called.
Elizabeth’s head snapped toward the back passenger window of the Range Rover. “I need to get Hallie and Danvers home,” she said. Casey shuffled toward the driver’s side. Elizabeth shook her head and pointed to the passenger door. “I’ll drive.” She turned to me. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Instead of answering, I tried to figure out how I would ever face her again.
Chapter 37
“You’ll never believe what happened when I left work today.” Still keyed up from the encounter with Kyle and Casey in the parking lot, I paced the length of my deck, holding my cell phone to my ear and wishing I could remember where I had put my headphones.
On the other end of the line, voices murmured and a can snapped open before Dana spoke. “No idea.” She made a loud gulping sound.
“What are you drinking?”
“Seltzer,” Dana said. “It may or may not be spiked.”
I sank into one of the chairs that faced west. The sun had already dipped behind the mountains, leaving a burnt-orange glow in its place. “I’m betting it’s spiked.”
“You would be correct.” She gulped again. “Cape Cod cranberry—it’s delicious.” The voices in the background grew louder, and someone started to play a guitar.
“Is this a bad time?”
“We have people over.”
I pictured a smiling, tanned Dana in a living room crowded with happy people, celebrating summer. Then I thought about me helping Kyle’s distressed mistress to her feet in my employer’s parking lot and coming home to an empty house. For the first time that I could remember, I envied my sister’s carefree life.
“Hold on,” Dana said. There was a whooshing noise and the sound of a door banging shut. “I’m outside now. Tell me what happened.”
Now I imagined her sitting how I was, alone on a deck in an Adirondack chair. I wished I hadn’t pulled her away from her friends to complain about my miserable existence. “Why don’t you call me after everyone’s gone.”
Dana laughed. “There are always people here. Just tell me what happened.”
“Is Oliver outside with you?”
The phone clicked before Dana answered. “I just put you on speaker. Say something to him.”
If Oliver still lived with me, he would be sitting in front of me with a paw on my thigh and his tongue hanging out of his mouth. I could almost feel his hot dog breath on my leg. “I miss you, little buddy.” My chest burned as I spoke the words.
“He says he misses you too. Now, tell me what happened.”
“Am I off speaker?”
“No, you’re on Instagram Live,” Dana deadpanned.
“Funny.” I inhaled sharply before launching into the story of what had happened when I left work today.
As I spoke, Dana’s breathing grew louder. From time to time she gasped, but she refrained from saying anything until I finished.
“That asshole! He has no right to just show up at the magazine after what he did.”
My phone vibrated in my hand. For a second, I thought the force of Dana’s angry words had caused the vibration, but there was an incoming text from Elizabeth.
My throat went dry as I read her words. I’d been holding out hope that Casey would be too ashamed to tell Elizabeth that Kyle was the baby’s father, but clearly Casey had told her.
“Great,” I said. “Just got a text from my boss. She knows what happened between Kyle and Casey.”
“What did the text say?” Dana asked. “‘Hey, I heard your cheating,no-good husband knocked up my kids’ nanny.’”
