Chapter 10

10

The address Marnie gave me is only a twenty-minute drive away. Even though it's geographically close, as I drive through the streets of her neighborhood, I immediately recognize that I have entered a different social class. This is not the kind of neighborhood that I live in, where houses have heated toilets and skylights and newly renovated kitchens and temperature control using phone apps. This is a neighborhood where you don't want to venture out after dark.

I locate Marnie's house using my GPS, and when I pull up in front of the two-story cottage, I can't help but think how much shabbier her house is than mine. If she is the mother of Grant's children, why does she have a house that looks like it's crumbling at the foundations, while I have a house that contains something called a smart refrigerator?

I step out of my Lexus, which is a great deal nicer than the old, dented Kia parked in the driveway. As I start up the walkway to the front door, once again, I get the feeling somebody is watching me. This time, it's so strong that it stops me in my tracks.

I turn around. The street is quiet right now. There's a man down the block who is mowing his lawn, but other than that, nobody is there. Certainly, nobody is watching me.

And then I see a slight rustling in the bushes on the periphery of the lawn. I watch them, certain that my husband will emerge from the shrubbery at any moment, possibly in zombie form. But I stand there for at least sixty seconds, and there is no further movement. Nobody is coming out of the bushes to talk to me or eat my brains. Nobody is there at all.

Maybe it was the wind.

I turn around and continue my journey to the front door. I press my finger against the doorbell, but I don't hear any sound. It must be broken. So instead, I bang my fist against the door.

I hear bursts of crying in several different pitches. There is a large amount of shuffling behind the door, and several seconds later, Marnie pulls it open, still wearing that same floral-print dress but this time with a milk stain on the front. A baby of about one year old is balanced on one of her hips.

When Marnie sees me, her face breaks into a tired smile. "Alice!" she cries. "You came."

"Yes…."

I don't know what to make of this. Is this child on Marnie's hip really Grant's offspring? Admittedly, he does resemble my husband, but it's hard to find features of a thirty-seven-year-old man on the face of an infant. I still don't know what to believe.

"I know this must be weird for you," she acknowledges. "It's weird for me too. I had no idea there was another woman in Grant's life. But we both know that Grant would not have wanted his family to starve."

It takes all I have to keep myself from blurting out, "But I thought I was his only family."

Grant was an only child, and his parents died long before we met. It was one of the reasons he so badly wanted us to have a child of our own. He had no family, and he desperately wanted to start one with me. I had no idea that he already had a head start with somebody else.

"Please," Marnie says. "Won't you come in?"

I obediently follow her into the living room. I expected to see another child playing in there, but that's not what I see. There are, in fact, so many children in this room that I'm having trouble counting them all. There is a teenage girl on the sofa who has a sour expression on her face as she scrolls on her phone. There's one child who appears to be writing Ayah on the wall. There's a child of about four years old who is wearing only a pair of underwear and eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream from his lap while he sits on an armchair.

"That's Michaela on the sofa—always on her phone." Marnie gives me a conspiratorial look as if I'm intimately familiar with the relationship between the teenage progeny of my husband and their phones. "Then that's Deacon eating the ice cream. Ember is the one making snow angels on the carpet. Royce is the one spinning around in a circle. Ayah is the one who is—Ayah, stop writing on the wall! And then over on the dining table are Shyleigh and Skyla. And then this one on my hip is little Arlo." She beams at the baby. "Say hi to the nice lady, Arlo."

Arlo sucks on his thumb.

I'm at a loss for words. I accepted that there was a tiny possibility my husband could have had a child or two with this woman. But there are enough children in this room to become a pop band of siblings that tours around the country in a psychedelic school bus. How could these children all be the spawn of my late husband?

Yet they undeniably look like him. They all have his blond hair and his eyes and his facial structure. Not only that, but the walls are littered with framed photographs of Marnie and Grant with their children. If this is a hoax, it is an extremely elaborate one.

Deacon eats the last spoonful of his chocolate ice cream and runs over to his mother. He tugs on her dress and looks up at her with his chocolate-smeared face. "Mommy, is Daddy coming home soon?"

Marnie glances over at me and then gives her son a crooked smile. "He's been very busy traveling, honey. It might be a while before he comes home again."

"Mommy," he says again, "will we get to eat dinner tonight? My tummy was so empty at bedtime last night."

How could he be so hungry when he was literally just eating ice cream? But the kid does look almost skeletal. In fact, the entire family appears a bit malnourished, including Marnie.

"I hope so, Deacon," Marnie replies. "It's up to Auntie Alice over here."

"Mommy," he continues.

Oh God, what now?

"Do you think we'll be able to watch television tonight, or will the power get shut off again?"

"Don't worry," she says. "Even if the lights go out, we can have another sleepover with flashlights. Wasn't that fun?"

This kid is going to make me burst into tears. If Marnie's goal was to pull my heartstrings, she has successfully achieved it. I can't leave this house without helping these poor children.

"Fine," I finally say. "I'll make sure you get a piece of Grant's inheritance."

Her eyes light up. "Really?"

"We would need to do a DNA test, though. You know that, right?"

"Of course, of course…"

"If it comes back as a match," I say, "I will arrange to give you half of the insurance and inheritance money."

Her face fills with fury, pink circles appearing on her cheeks. "Half?" she bursts out. "Do you see how many children are in this room? It costs me a week's salary just to pay for one night of dinner! And you…" She wrinkles her nose. "It's just you . All you have to worry about is yourself."

"Actually…" I lay one hand on my abdomen protectively. "I'm pregnant."

It's the first time I have uttered those words out loud. Marnie might not be my friend, like Poppy is, but we are connected. After all, when I have a child, that child will be a half-sibling to her children. Marnie and I are family now.

"So what?" Marnie shoots back. "So am I!"

Seriously ? How many children was my husband planning to have with this woman before I found out about it?

But I can't blame Marnie. She was in the dark, just like me. I can't let her family starve just because my husband was a shit.

"Let me see what I can do," I tell her.