Page 51 of The New Couple in 5B

I draw in a deep breath. “I know.”

She’s about to say something else when Chad interrupts us.

“I’m sorry this happened to you.” Chad puts his hands on my face. “I didn’t know how unwell she really was. I thought—I don’t know what I thought.”

“Why didn’t you call me back?”

“I did. I tried and tried to call. You didn’t answer.”

It’s not true. I know it isn’t. But then when I look at the screen on my phone, there’s a red number six on my phone icon. A slew of missed calls from Chad, at least three voice messages.

“It didn’t ring,” I say. “I didn’t get these calls.”

“I was trying to reach you, to tell you not to go to see her if she called. Clearly, her demons got the better of her today. It’s a tragedy.”

His eyes well, and there’s true sorrow there. I pull him in and hold on to him.

“That was it,” he whispers. “She was my last living family member.”

“No,” I say, urgently wanting that not to be so. “We’rebuilding a family. That’s the past. We are the future.”

The pregnancy test I picked up yesterday is waiting for me at home. Now more than ever I want to give this to him, to us. A family that grows, that supports, that loves.

Max and Olivia have stepped off to the side, talk in low tones. They know each other from events and parties, dinners. But there’s something about the way they’re standing, how he leans into her, how she touches her hair. I wonder if there’s something more between them than just an acquaintance through mutual friends. I am surprised by, and quickly quash, a rush of jealousy.

I focus on my husband. “What did she want to tell me about you?”

Chad shakes his head, looks lost. “That picture,” I go on. “There are others. She was following you. Watching you.”

The air is growing colder, the day going gray; a light rain starts to fall. Chad pulls me under the awning.

“I know,” he says. “She—had problems.”

He’s about to say something more. But Max has called an UberXL, and the black Suburban pulls up to the curb and we all pile in, eager to get away from this place, out of the rain, which is coming down harder.

Olivia, in the back row, gets on her phone and is talking low and serious. Max sits up front with the driver, staring out the window. What must he be thinking?

“That picture,” I whisper to Chad.

He holds up his palms.

“It was a long time ago. She invited me to her school to pose for her class. It was decent money, and I was broke.”

I guess that tracks. My husband is not shy.

“And these?” I open my bag. He lifts out the photos and shifts through them, shaking his head.

“They’re old.” He picks up the one where he holds another woman’s hand in a café. Her face is not visible in the frame. His ring hand is not visible, either. “That’s Elsa, I think. You’ve met. We saw each other for a while, but it didn’t work out.”

He’s smooth, always has an answer.

“And this one?” The image from the nightclub, it’s all shadows and swirling purple light.

He blows out a breath. “I don’t know. That could be us. Look at the hair, those boots. That’s you, Rosie. Right?”

I look more closely. Maybe? I’m not sure I’m that short, or that slim.

“When were we at a club?” I ask. I’m not exactly the nightclub type.