The sound cut through the whole yard.
“She was invited, Eleanor,” Meline said.
Her voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.
Every person in that yard heard it.
“I texted her from Garrett’s phone,” Meline said. “I thought the mother of his second child should finally meet the mother of his first.”
Eleanor went dead white.
“Especially,” Meline said, tapping the binder, “since you’ve been using money stolen from our joint business account to furnish her nursery. The stroller. The crib. The chair. I have every receipt.”
Tanya’s face changed. Shock. Then horror.
“You bought that stuff?” she said to Eleanor.
Eleanor snapped, “I didn’t know!”
“You came to our wedding,” Colleen said. “Try again.”
Meline looked at Garrett.
He had dropped to his knees in the grass.
No dignity left. No swagger. Just sweat and panic and a man finally seeing the wall in front of him.
“Garrett Mercer,” Meline said, “pack one bag. Leave this house. If you contact me again, I hand the binder to the police for fraud and theft.”
Tanya started sobbing. Real sobbing. Not over Meline. Over herself. Over the story Garrett had sold her. Over the fact that she had been played and bought and lied to by a man who couldn’t even hold onto a spatula now.
The neighbors began moving. Fast. Grabbing kids. Abandoning plates. Getting out.
No one wanted to stay near the blast zone.
Good.
Part 5: The Cost
Six months later, the system had caught up.
In a county courtroom downtown, Garrett sat at the defense table in cheap clothes, crying into his hands while the judge went through the record in a flat, disgusted voice.
Tanya had come after him first.
