Chapter 3

Early the next morning, Angela came back carrying a plastic takeout container.

The heavy smell of seafood drifted over, and my stomach turned.

"This place makes a really good seafood chowder. Matthew has a small appetite, couldn't finish it."

"I figured throwing it out would be a waste, so I brought it back for you to try."

"Seafood chowder isn't cheap. By rights you should pay Matthew half."

"But he's always been kind and generous, so we'll just call it the rent on the nursery."

I couldn't help the cold laugh in my chest. I pushed the half-eaten bowl of chowder back across to her.

"Angela, how much does a one-bedroom go for on the market?"

She blanked for a second, then caught my meaning and flushed with anger.

"Rupert, it's the thought that counts. Since when did you crawl so far up your own wallet?"

"Isn't this what you taught me?"

When I had acute appendicitis and spent half a month in bed recovering,

she itemized the extra water, gas, and electricity I'd used, said I'd run the air conditioning too much at home.

"Is there any point dragging up all this old stuff? Do you even want this marriage to work?"

I lifted my eyes to her, calm and flat.

"Crib, five thousand eight. Warming sterilizer, three thousand six. Pure cotton bedding, twelve hundred."

"Clothes and toys, two thousand. Room renovation, ten thousand. Twenty-two thousand six hundred total. You pay it in full."

"And our daughter, she's at the hospital—"

Angela cut me off, her face full of disappointment.

"Rupert, you get colder and meaner by the day. You used to be so understanding, so easygoing. You never kept score."

"When I didn't keep score, you wanted every last thing accounted for. Now I follow your rules, and suddenly I'm cold and mean?"

"Angela, why do your rules only ever point at me?"

She had no answer. She pulled out a wad of bills and flung them at me, letting them scatter.

"Fine. You want this little bit of money, take it. But you remember, you're the one driving a wedge between us."

"When our daughter grows up, I'll be sure to tell her never to marry a petty, penny-pinching man like you."

Something twisted in my chest.

Even now, she still didn't believe the baby was gone.

I thought of the cremation arrangements the funeral home had sent over, and my voice softened.

"Angela, are you free tomorrow? There's somewhere I need to take you."

She was still riled up, and her cheeks puffed out at the words.

"Is my time worth nothing to you?"

"You want me to go with you, fine. Pay me by the hour."

I pressed down the ache and the helplessness rising in me.

"Fine. Whatever your hourly rate is, I'll pay it."

"Fifteen hundred an hour."

I picked up my phone and transferred her forty-five hundred. "I'll be taking three hours of your time tomorrow. Here's the payment up front."

Buying the child one last chance to see her mother.

The words had barely left me when her phone rang.

"Angela, Rice Cake's got a bit of diarrhea, I'm freaking out."

Angela couldn't spare another second to argue with me. She grabbed her coat and headed for the door.

"I need to go check on Matthew's dog. The rest of this can wait."

I stubbornly caught the sleeve of her coat.

"You just agreed. Nine tomorrow morning, you come with me."

"Angela, it's the last time."

It was the last time I would ever beg her like this, small and pleading.

Beg her to do a mother's duty, just once, and say goodbye to her child properly.

Angela's brows knit tight, her whole face impatient.

"Can you stop being such a pain? What if something happens to Rice Cake?"

"Can't your little mess wait a while?"

She pushed my hand off, her voice ice-cold and final.

"Rupert, I don't have time to indulge your drama."

With that, she yanked the door open and walked off fast.

I stood where I was, everything inside me gone still and dead.

Then I turned and gathered my things, and set the signed divorce papers on the desk in her study.

After tomorrow, we'd go our separate ways, free of each other.