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“Yes. It’s how I’ve been able to afford Harmony’s apartment. To make ends meet during months it should never be possible. I’m sorry I never told you, but I just couldn’t explain how the money got there.”
“What does this mean for us?” Anne asked finally. “What am I supposed to do?”
“You can turn me in,” Mark said, his eyes glancing up toward hers. “I wouldn’t blame you. Not in the slightest.”
Anne forced her doubts about her husband to take a back seat. Just for a moment. Suppose he is telling the truth? What would that mean for their marriage? If Anne didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt, just once more, would she regret it?
“We all make mistakes.”
“We do,” Mark acknowledged. “That doesn’t excuse them.”
Anne stood, pushing her empty bottle toward Mark. “I have to think. Alone.”
“Take as much time as you need. You know where to find me when you’re ready.”
The couple walked silently through the house. It had gone from an awkward first date to the tired, exhausted reality of a couple married with four children. They had marched through hell and back. They had both made mistakes. There were pains that needed to heal. Wrongs that couldn’t be righted.
Anne slipped her shoes on, paused in the doorway. “Mark…”
He stepped closer, his breathing thin and fragile. “Yes?”
Anne licked her lips, swallowed. “I’ve been thinking… The vanity I threw out the other day…the garbage man didn’t take it, and I didn’t get around to burning it.”
“You want me to get rid of it for you?”
“Actually,” Anne whispered, “if you have a spare minute, maybe you could fix the drawers?”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Three Months After
May 2019
Penny waddled down the hall and let herself into the casting office. She knew, of course, that this job was only temporary. That it wouldn’t last. The idea of asking about paid maternity leave—or maternity leave in general—was laughable. Benefits weren’t even on the horizon.
The previous week, Penny had picked up an application at the grocery store down the street from her apartment. It had pained her physically to write her name on the form. But her hospital bills wouldn’t pay themselves.
As it was, Penny had enough savings to get through a month, maybe two, of self-made maternity leave. She’d already cut every cost she could—she’d given up all her writing classes and patched her car’s bumper with duct tape.
She’d stashed every cent she could muster into a savings account that would give her a tiny buffer once the baby arrived. But after two months’ time, she’d be back to work. At a grocery store. She’d moved to Hollywood to find herself and, in the process, had lost everything.
“Penny?”
It took a moment for Penny to remember that she was at work. Her eyes shot up from the sign-in log at the casting company’s front desk while she registered the sound of a familiar voice. Penny couldn’t quite place it until she laid eyes on a face she hadn’t seen in…almost nine months.
“Ryan!” Startled, Penny gulped down a breath of air. “How…um, how are you? What are you doing here?”
It was a stupid question, since Penny could see the headshots he carried in his hand. The moment was embarrassing for both of them—for Penny because she was employed by a crappy company peddling hope to wannabe actors, and for Ryan because he was knowingly visiting said crappy company on the fumes of hope. Both their careers were obviously floundering.
“Are those your headshots? I can get you signed in.” Penny stood, flummoxed, wiping her hands on her umbrella of a dress. “I hadn’t realized you’d be in the studio today.”
Ryan had bigger problems, it seemed, than his sad excuse for a career. He was staring with a glazed look at Penny’s stomach. His face scrunched up, and it became painfully obvious that he was trying to do math. His lips moved as he counted backward.
“How far along are you?” he asked finally. “Congratulations, by the way.”
“I’m due any day.”
Ryan blinked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
