“How would you know my apartment is crappy?”
“I wasn’t born yesterday, Penny Sue Sands. I know how much apartment you can get for the money you’re making, and it isn’t much. Also, your father showed me how to use Google’s street view the other day, and your place looks like a dump.” She paused to catch her breath. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but I feel like my daughter is getting all turned around out there.”
Penny’s chest felt as if it were wrapping around her like a boa constrictor. Beginning to squeeze. Lose air. She couldn’t breathe. “That’s not fair. You don’t know what it’s like being in a new city all by myself, figuring everything out on my own. I was a big fish in a small pond back home, and I had to know if I could be a big fish in an ocean.”
“And what if you’re not cut out for that sort of life?” Amy asked. “Big fish in the ocean are mean. They eat the pretty, nice little fishies.”
“I can handle it.” Penny reached for the borrowed wineglass and twisted it around, swirling the sparkling water she’d poured inside. She watched as the little bubbles gulped for air against the surface. “I’m not as naive as you think.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that.”
Penny made a noncommittal noise in her throat. The wineglass was one of four items she’d taken the last time she’d been at Eliza’s. The time she’d announced to the world that she was pregnant. She’d adopted two wineglasses—one she used, one that was untouched, still wrapped in a sweater and tucked in her purse.
The other two items were some of the riskiest things she’d taken yet. She’d spotted a set at Eliza’s house, one both expensive and sentimental. A set that was likely to be missed, a set that went against all Penny’s rules. She was getting careless.
Penny ran her thumb over the knife’s handle and read the inscription. Roman’s and Eliza Tate’s initials, along with their anniversary date, were carved into the handle. There was a matching spoon that Penny had also taken…just because. The spoon she hadn’t even bothered to unpack from her purse. The knife…she took joy in hoarding it because it wasn’t deserved.
Roman and Eliza’s marriage was doomed. They no longer had a need for the knife to commemorate their union. Roman had gotten Penny pregnant. Whether he took the news well or took the news poorly, it wouldn’t matter. Surely Eliza wouldn’t take him back after that.
“Then tell me, is it working?” Penny’s mother startled her back to reality. “Are you finding yourself out there?”
Penny fell silent. The truth was that she hadn’t found herself at all. If anything, she’d lost more than she’d found. Bits of her had scattered, torn apart like wet tissue paper stomped across the city’s dreary streets, shards of color left to drift in muddy gutters.
She wondered if she could ever be whole again. If someone could scoop up all those scattered bits of tissue and papier-mâché her back together into something bigger, stronger, bolder, more colorful than ever before. It had to be possible. Otherwise, how could she support herself, let alone a child?
It is possible, Penny determined, reminding herself that life hadn’t been entirely awful since she’d arrived. She pictured bits of beauty that belonged exclusively to her: a bouquet of fresh flowers from Anne, a thoughtful text from Ryan, the wonder and awe over the whisper of new life growing inside her.
Penny could recover. She could gather the broken pieces, the torn shreds. With a bit of glue and patience and support, she could be beautiful again. The ripped and torn pieces wouldn’t be discarded; they’d be woven into the person she would become.
“I think I’m on the right track,” Penny said softly. “But to find myself, I think I have to lose myself first. And I don’t know how to manage that.”
“Oh, honey.” Her mother’s voice broke.
“I can’t explain everything just yet,” Penny said, barely holding it together. “Trust me for a little while longer. I have to go now. I’ll talk to you later.”
Penny hung up, emotionally drained from the conversation. She glanced at the time. Nearly 10:00 p.m., which meant class would be letting out shortly. Obviously, Penny wasn’t in attendance. She hadn’t seen Roman since she’d been inside his house two days before.
She hadn’t known what to expect after Eliza broke the baby news inside the Tate residence. The home Eliza still apparently shared with Roman. Penny had known the two were living together, and while she’d thought it was odd, she had tried to understand. Or she had pretended to at least.
But then Eliza had called Roman honey and darling that afternoon, and ever since, Penny had been unable to shake the feeling that she was missing something. That her world wasn’t quite right.
What the hell did I expect from Roman after Eliza’s bombshell? Penny thought caustically. A phone call? A visit? A card? Roman knew where she lived. He had her phone number programmed into his device—or he had, once upon a time. Eerily enough, she hadn’t heard a peep. She’d tentatively reached out to him with a text, asking if they could meet, which he had ignored.
She couldn’t entirely blame him. Roman should have been the first person to know about the baby, but Penny hadn’t gotten the chance to tell him. She’d barely come to terms with the little pink line herself. Later that day, she’d found herself at an event inside her baby daddy’s ex-wife’s house—an event that had triggered catastrophic consequences. Judging by the silent treatment, Penny surmised that Roman wasn’t pleased with the news.
Still, Penny’s heart lurched every time her email notification dinged. Her breath stuttered at the jingle of her ringtone. Latent, desperate hope lived inside her, a hope that Roman would show up at her door with a bouquet of roses and demand they be a family.
Yeah, right, Penny scoffed. A family. She let out a harsh laugh. There was no such thing. Roman already had a family with his wife. The only family Penny’s child would ever know was a broken one. Her son or daughter deserved a father, and her baby wouldn’t have one by no fault of his own.
Penny had inherited all the burdens of being a wife without the benefits of having a husband. She had the child, the responsibilities. She’d need to cook and clean and secure a stable job. She’d need to provide insurance and childcare and love for this baby, yet she had nobody to turn to for support. A single wife, she thought caustically. That was exactly what she was.
But was it really all Roman’s fault? Was the baby his? According to Penny’s calculations, she’d slept with Ryan during the start of her fertile window. By the end of it, she’d fallen into bed with Roman. Still, the baby must belong to Roman by sheer sperm volume. They’d slept together more times than Penny could count. It had to be his.
That didn’t stop Penny from wondering if she owed Ryan a heads-up about her pregnancy. There wasn’t exactly a handbook that laid out right and wrong for this situation. Penny was so far in the wrong that right was a distant shooting star.
And even if she did tell him, what would she say? There is a tiny chance this baby is yours, but I also had loads of sex with our acting instructor, so statistically, it’s probably his.