The drive home was the longest twenty minutes of Jennifer’s life.
Diane had offered to come with her, flat out begged her, but Jennifer needed to walk back into that house alone.
She needed Michael to look her in the face before she decided what her next move was going to be.
She found him in the kitchen, sitting at the island with a glass of whiskey he hadn’t touched.
Still in yesterday’s shirt.
Red eyes.
He looked like a man waiting on a verdict.
Good.
“Jen.” He stood up fast, like he’d been rehearsing this moment.
“Baby, I—”
“Sit down, Michael.”
Something in her voice stopped him cold.
He sat.
She set her purse on the counter.
Took off her jacket.
Folded it over the barstool.
“Tell me her name.”
His face went blank. “What?”
“The woman. Her name.”
A pause.
“Simone.”
Jennifer felt her stomach drop straight through the floor.
Simone.
As in Simone Carter.
The same woman she saw on Instagram last night, grinning in a beach photo with her arm around Jason eighteen months ago.
That Simone.
“How long?”
“About a year.”
“Michael took a deep breath. “
It was stupid, Jen.
“It was meaningless, I swear ”
“A year isn’t meaningless, Michael.
“A year is a decision.”
“How far along is she?”
“She says four months.”
“She says.”
He frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Jennifer looked at Michael with a plain face.
“It means women lie”. Michael.
You of all people should know that when a woman says she a pregnant is just a claim until there’s proof.”
“She sent me a picture of—”
“Really a freaking picture Michael!”
Jennifer almost laughed.
“You can print a sonogram off the internet with that damn A. I. Out here”.
“Did you actually see her? Go to a doctor’s appointment? Anything?”
His silence told her everything.
He hadn’t questioned a single thing this woman told him.
He’d just panicked and confessed.
Idiot.
“I want you to call her,” Jennifer said.
“Right now. Put her on speaker.”
“Jen, I don’t think—”
“Michael.”
“Stop thinking of excuses and Call. Her. Now.”
Simone picked up on the second ring like she had been waiting on this call.
“So she knows.” Not a question.
“She’s right here,” Michael said.
“Good.” With excitement in her voice.
“Hi, Jennifer.”
Jennifer leaned against the counter with her arms crossed.
“Hello, Simone. Let’s skip straight to good shit. You’re not pregnant with my husband’s baby.”
Dead silence.
Then a low laugh.
“Wow. Okay. Is that what you’re going with?”
“That’s what the truth is.”
“Jennifer, honey—”
“Don’t.” “I know who you are. I know exactly who you are. And I know whose baby you’re actually carrying, if you’re carrying one at all.”
Another silence. Longer this time.
Then.
“This conversation is over,” Simone said, and her voice had changed.
“No it isn’t,” Jennifer said. “You came after my family. That means we are just getting started.”
The line went dead.
To be continued..