The rain had started again, the fine Seattle kind that doesn’t look like much but soaks through your jacket by the time you walk half a block. I stood outside the building on 32nd Avenue and checked the address on my phone for the third time. 4207. Old brick, fire escape running up the side like an afterthought. The intercom had a strip of masking tape with unit numbers written in marker. 44. I pressed it and waited.
Her voice came through the speaker after two buzzes. “Yes?”
“It’s Amber.” I kept my thumb jammed against the button so she’d hear how steady I was. “I need to talk to you about Brent.”
A pause. Long enough that I thought she’d hung up. Then the lock clicked.
The lobby smelled like floor wax and someone’s reheated tuna casserole. The elevator was out — yellow legal paper taped to the door said “Use stairs, sorry for the inconvenience.” I took the steps one at a time, my free hand pressed low on my belly. Seven months along, and the baby kicked against my ribs every time I lifted my foot. Brent still hadn’t told his wife. That’s why I was here. Because he couldn’t bring himself to say the words, and I was done waiting for him to “handle it.”
Her door was at the end of the hall. I knocked twice.
She opened fast, like she’d been standing just behind it. Diane. His wife of thirty years. She was smaller than I’d pictured — or maybe it was the cardigan, the way it hung off her sharp shoulders. Her hair was clipped back, gray strands stuck to her temples. There was dirt under her fingernails. Brent said she’d be out on the balcony with those ficus plants she treated like pets.
“You’re Amber,” she said. Not a question.
“We need to talk.” I stepped past her without waiting for an invitation. “About the apartment.”
For a second she didn’t move. Then she shut the door behind me. The warm air hit my face — lavender laundry soap, the faint bite of bleach. My boots left wet prints on the entry tile, and I didn’t wipe them.
“Bathroom,” I said. It wasn’t a question either.
She pointed down the hall. “Second door.”
I used the toilet, then stood at the sink with cold water running over my wrists. The mirror showed me a woman who looked ten years older than she was — dark circles, chapped lips, a flush creeping up her neck. I splashed water on my face and whispered at my reflection, “You’re doing this for the baby.”
When I came out, she was already in the kitchen. I sat across from her at a small table. The room was old but kept up — white cabinets with brass handles, a bowl of apples, a potholder with a rooster on a hook by the stove. On a high shelf above the counter sat an old tin tea canister, the kind with faded flowers, next to a stack of cookbooks. The whole place felt like a photograph from another decade.
I put both hands on my belly. “Brent’s too soft to do this himself, so I’m here. You need to understand something, Diane. We’re having a son. In eight weeks, maybe less. My rental is seven hundred square feet with a broken dishwasher and a landlord who won’t fix the heat. He’s not going to raise his son in a place like that.”
She didn’t react. Just sat there with her hands folded on the table, fingers laced, the soil still ground into the creases of her knuckles.
I kept going. “This condo is huge. Two bedrooms, a dining room, a balcony. You don’t need all this space. You’ve got the cabin out past Sultan. That’s a better fit for you — fresh air, quiet, no stairs.” I paused. “For the record, I don’t want this to be ugly. We can do it clean. You move out by the end of the month, and we’ll help you pack.”
A basket of cookies sat near my elbow — lumpy oatmeal things with walnuts. My stomach turned over, that familiar wave of nausea I’d had every morning for the last six months. I grabbed one without asking and bit down. The flavor was fine for about two seconds, then I hit something hard — a shell fragment, maybe, or a piece of uncooked grain. My gag reflex fired before I could stop it.
I spat the half-chewed mess onto the white linen napkin by the sugar bowl. Wiped my fingers on the same cloth, careless and quick. “Sorry,” I muttered, not meaning it. “Pregnancy.”
That was the first moment her face changed. The polite blankness shifted into something flat and cold, like a door clicking shut. She stood up. Walked to the window over the sink and cranked it shut, cutting off the sound of the rain drumming on the fire escape. Then she turned to the shelf and took down a thick blue folder.
She set it on the table between us. Her fingers stayed on the cover for a moment, then lifted.
“Brent didn’t tell you the important thing,” she said. Her voice had no edge to it — just a calm, even delivery that made my skin prickle.
“What thing?”
She opened the folder. The first page was a collection notice. The number at the top blurred for a second before my eyes focused: $227,000.00.
“This condo is mine,” she said. “My mother gave it to me seven years before I married Brent. His name isn’t on the deed. It isn’t on the lease. He has no legal right to a single square foot of it.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. My hand moved to my belly on its own.
“The trucking company he talks about,” she went on. “It went under eighteen months ago. He hasn’t had a real job since. The dinners out, the hotel rooms, the flowers he sent you last month — all on my credit cards. I paid twelve thousand dollars last year alone to keep collection agencies off my doorstep.” She tapped the folder with one finger. “This is what’s left. Court documents, notices, a stack of unpaid invoices. Twenty-two creditors and counting.”
My ears were ringing. I thought about the five thousand I’d put down on a bigger rental last week because Brent swore we needed “room for the baby” until the condo was sorted. I thought about the stroller I’d bought on credit, the crib still disassembled in my living room.
“And one more thing.” She leaned across the table, not close enough to touch me, but close enough that I could see the flecks of gray in her eyes. “An hour ago, I put his suitcases out in the hallway on the third floor. I blocked his number. So tonight, he won’t be coming to you with keys to a two-bedroom. He’ll be coming with two bags and two hundred twenty-seven thousand dollars of debt.”
The words landed like a punch to the chest. I couldn’t get a full breath. My face went hot, then cold. The tissue of every future I’d imagined — the nursery, the park down the street, the good daycare she’d mentioned — tore away all at once. Brent wasn’t a soft man who just needed a nudge. He was a lie. And I was seven months pregnant with his son.
I don’t remember reaching for my purse. I just remember the scrape of the chair legs, the tile sliding under my boots in the entryway, the door handle wobbling in my hand. She didn’t stop me. She didn’t call after me, didn’t say “I told you so.” She just watched.
Out in the hall, I noticed two large suitcases standing by the stairwell door. Gray, with duct tape on one zipper. I walked past them without slowing. My boots hammered down the stairs so fast I had to grip the railing to keep from pitching forward. The rain was still coming down outside, hard now. I ran to my car, fumbled with the key fob, yanked the door open.
I sat in the driver’s seat, breathing in ragged gasps. The blue folder was on my lap. I didn’t remember picking it up, but there it was. I opened it. The first page again. $227,000.00.
I pulled out my phone. Opened my contacts. Scrolled to Brent’s name. My thumb hovered over the call button for maybe three seconds. Then I tapped “Block this Caller.”
The screen flashed: **Brent — Blocked.**
I put the folder on the passenger seat. Started the car. The wipers slapped across the windshield, clearing the rain in wide arcs. My phone buzzed in the cup holder. I glanced down. **Unknown caller.**
I let it ring. Then I put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space, heading home to the seven-hundred-square-foot apartment with the broken dishwasher. I had no idea what I was going to do next, but I knew one thing for certain: I wasn’t going to answer when he called.
