Delphine might call this divine intervention.
But I call it a lucky break.
Grocery list in hand, I follow.
CHAPTER FIVE
MERRITT
Geriatric pregnancy. Some people get songs stuck in their heads. But today I’m being tormented by a stupid phrase. My regular OB was out, and filling in for her was some ninety-year-old retired physician with giant hearing aids and a white polyester lab coat that had to have been from the seventies. He jammed his cold, gloved fingers inside me, muttered a number I couldn’t quite hear, then snapped the gloves off and threw them toward the trash. They fell off the side of the stainless steel bin, but he didn’t notice. The nurse took care of them, of course, offering me an apologetic glance as I attempted to sit up from the reclined examination table with zero help.
The doctor seemed fixated on my age, amused almost. As if treating a forty-one-year-old pregnant woman were akin to observing an endangered animal in the wild. I’m sure when he was in the throes of his career, most women were popping out babies a year or two after high school, but times have changed.
Plenty of us wait to have babies until we’re older.
And plenty of us wait because we didn’t have the choice.
Either way, I’m not the endangered species in this situation—he is.
I grab a shopping cart at the Pine Grove Grocery Co-Op and make a beeline for the produce section. Apparently everyone and their neighbor decided to get groceries at two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, because the whole damned town is here.
I wait a patient three minutes for my turn by the onions. And I’m halfway between the bananas and the kiwis, listening to a twentysomething woman in yoga leggings argue with her bearded, man-bunned husband, when I realize I forgot to text Luca after my appointment earlier. Parking my cart, I dig my phone from my tote and fire off a message, letting him know all is well. Baby’s measuring perfectly on schedule. Blood pressure was a little high. They think it’s just maternal stress. No protein in urine. Instructed to take it easy. The usual . . .
The message shows as delivered, but I don’t expect a reply. He’s likely in a meeting, and I’ve no doubt he’ll get back to me the instant he’s free.
I’ve yet to tell him about the crazy woman last night, opting instead to keep myself busy and distracted. Flitting around town like everything’s normal, checking off all my wonderfully ordinary to-do list items is a balm to my frenzied nerves.
And it’s working like a charm.
I’ve thought of that crazy woman only once—and it was a fleeting, passing thought. One that I blinked away with minimal effort.
I fill the cart with our usual produce, adding in a container of dates so I can make Luca’s favorite muffins when we welcome him home. I move on to the next items, tossing in a few extras on the way, before ending up in the dairy aisle. I grab a gallon of whole milk for Elsie and head to the next case to grab a quart of the lactose-free variety Luca and I prefer—only that row is unstocked.
Sighing, I scan the other options.
The entire case is sparse.
Obviously someone’s not doing their job, which is frustrating because I know this place pays well. They pay so well, in fact, that we’ve lost a handful of perfectly good employees to them over the years—employees who will laugh with their friends about how they made the right choice as soon as news spreads about our failing restaurants.
My head throbs, and for a fraction of a second, tears brim along the bottom of my eyes.
I’m crying over unstocked milk.
And things I can’t control.
If Luca were here, he’d tease a smile out of me. He’d remind me how ridiculous this is. And he’d be right. He’d also tell me it’s not the end of the world. And once again, he’d be right. I choose a quart of the store-brand version and place it in my cart because it’s better than nothing, and then I back my cart out of the corner—only to realize I’m trapped by someone else’s cart.
“Excuse me, I—” I begin to say until I’m met with the same dark, sunken gaze from last night.
“Merritt.” Her hands wrap so tight on her cart handle that the whites of her knuckles shine through her pale skin. In broad daylight, she’s less ghostly than the last time. Her bland brown hair is shinier, combed straight and parted in the middle. And her clothes are clean. Slightly dated, but notably spotless and void of holes or rips. My curious regard falls to her torn shoes—as if I needed more confirmation that she is who I think she is. “Hi.”
I consider moving her cart out of the way myself, but my feet are rooted to the floor and my hands, too, grip my cart handle for dear life.
She reaches past, grabbing the closest milk without looking twice at the label because she hasn’t taken her eyes off me for a second.
If she were anyone else, I’d offer a polite “hello” and be on my way. But this situation is delicate, and she isn’t just anyone else.
She’s a deranged psychopath.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were following me.” I loosen my grip and straighten my shoulders. While she terrifies me, I refuse to give her the satisfaction of knowing that.
“I’m . . . grocery shopping for a friend.” Her lips bunch at one side, slow and casual, and she lifts a shoulder to her ear. “Didn’t mean to upset you last night.”
I arch a brow. “I find that extremely hard to believe . . . having someone show up on your doorstep after dark, claiming to be a dead woman, would be upsetting to anyone. You’re lucky you dealt with me and not my husband.”
That’s not true—Luca is kinder than me on his worst days. But it sounds better. And I want to warn her to stay away, that we’re not the kind to mess with.
“I walked to your house,” she says. “I didn’t realize it was so far from town. Took me longer than I thought. And I didn’t want to turn around and walk back because I’d already come all that way . . .”
Part of me wants to ask how she got our address. Luca made sure it was a private listing on the county assessor page, and he had all sales records scrubbed from public real estate listings as well as our name and address removed from search engines. When you’re a well-known restaurateur, it’s the sort of thing you do to protect yourself and your family.
“You have a lovely home.” Her voice is wistful this time. “At least, from what I saw of it. The two of you have really made a nice life together.”
I scan our surroundings. For a store as busy as this one, how can the milk aisle be vacant?
Sweat prickles beneath my arms, but I keep my expression frozen and my gaze as icy as the coolers that surround us.
My heart thumps, taut in my chest. “I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but—”
“I told you who I am last night,” she says with an incredulous squint, and then she rests her elbows on her cart handle, hunching into a comfortable position that insinuates she has no intention of leaving this conversation anytime soon.
“What’s your angle? Do you want money? You want to be on the news? Are you obsessed with my husband? What?” I’ve heard stories of people posting pictures of their beautiful families on social media, gaining followers by the tens of thousands as they let strangers peek into their private life. But that’s never been our style. And Luca is nothing if not a private man. He of all people knows there are millions of sickos out there. No need to bait them.