The Slip Toby Kept Hidden

I gave Brenda no reaction to read. I loosened my shoulders, lifted my glass, and drank before offering her a smile without warmth.

She paused, unsettled by my silence. She had counted on an argument, perhaps even a shout, anything she could turn into another performance of injured innocence.

“Anyway,” she said, her voice smooth as she faced Dad again, “I’ll stop at the pharmacy after my shower. I need vitamins. The doctor thinks I’m a little anemic.”

As she spoke, one hand rested briefly against her stomach. The movement was quiet enough to escape Dad’s notice, but I saw it clearly.

A cold certainty swept through me. She was laying the story’s first stones, preparing to present her pregnancy as the blessing Dad had always wanted.

Dad pushed back from the table and rose with a tired groan. His knees cracked as he leaned over to kiss Brenda’s cheek.

“Get what you need, Bren,” he told her. “Use the joint card.”

He collected his lunchbox, then mussed my hair on his way out. I managed not to flinch beneath his hand.

The front door shut behind him. Soon, the growl of his motorcycle traveled through the house and dwindled along the road.

Only after its sound had disappeared did Brenda’s pleasant expression vanish. The change was immediate, like a light switched off.

“If you or Toby go near my purse again,” she murmured, scraping the remaining eggs into the sink, “I’ll do more than call Child Services.”

She kept her eyes on the dishes. “I’ll get the police to arrest him for stealing. Don’t make me prove I mean it.”

The threat left me cold. Toby was nine. She knew exactly how to frighten him, and she knew I would do anything to protect him.

Brenda tossed the spatula into the basin. It struck with a sharp clang, and she headed down the hall toward the master bathroom.

The shower started a few moments later. Water roared through the old pipes, filling the house with a steady rush.

I stayed in the kitchen and listened. The sound covered the space between us, but it didn’t soften the danger waiting behind it.

She thought she had crushed my resolve. Maybe she believed the warning had finally made me afraid enough to obey.

I had only a short window before she finished bathing. I couldn’t waste it deciding whether I was brave.

I hurried along the hallway and entered the master bedroom. I left the door open a narrow crack so the shower would remain audible.

Vanilla perfume lingered in the room, mixed with the sour trace of old wine. The scent made my stomach tighten.

Her costly leather handbag rested on an armchair beside the window. I lifted it carefully; the weight pulled at my wrist.

I opened the main zipper. I wasn’t searching for ordinary secrets or anything belonging to a decent woman.

A child had been forced to kneel on hardwood because of Brenda. I wanted proof of her connection to Paul Vance.

I checked past her cosmetics, several receipts, and a little sanitizer bottle. No phone appeared among them.

Her designer wallet was thick and heavy. I opened it, holding my breath as I searched inside.

Behind a row of store loyalty cards, in the deepest slot, I found forty dollars. Two new-looking twenty-dollar notes lay together.

My stomach turned again. Brenda hadn’t misplaced the cash at all; she had simply put it somewhere Toby wouldn’t find it.

She’d invented the theft after catching him with the clinic receipt. The accusation had been a deliberate way to torment him and keep us under control.

I returned the bills to their hiding place. If the wallet looked disturbed, she might know someone had been there.

Then I searched the bottom of the bag, probing past its lining until my fingertips struck a firm, rounded object.

I drew out an orange medicine container. Someone had scraped its label away so thoroughly that only a tacky patch of pale adhesive remained.

The bottle rattled when I moved it. I looked inside and saw it was packed with large white tablets, none marked.

My pulse quickened. Why would Brenda carry pills with no name on them, especially while telling Dad she was expecting a baby?

I reached into the handbag once more, feeling along a small pocket sewn into its side. Paper crinkled beneath my fingers.

A folded glossy sheet came free. I unfolded it in the daylight near the window, trying to keep my hands steady.

The first page was a black-and-white sonogram. Its grainy picture showed the same eight-week fetus she had seen the day before.

Another document had been tucked beneath the print. It was an email confirmation from a medical office in a city two hours away.

My eyes stopped at the message’s heading. The blood seemed to drain from my face as I read the name: Westside Women’s Surgical Center.

Below it, the appointment details made the truth unmistakable. The procedure was listed as a first-trimester surgical termination.

The date was Friday, October 18. Friday was only two days away.

For a few seconds, I couldn’t move. She wasn’t intending to use a baby to bind Dad to her, or to escape with Paul Vance.

She meant to erase the evidence. She had confirmed the pregnancy using Dad’s insurance at a low-cost urgent care clinic on Tuesday.

Now she planned to travel out of town and end it before Dad—or Paul, or anyone—could learn the truth.

The shower stopped without warning. I stiffened, the sonogram and appointment paper still in my grasp.

From the adjoining bathroom came the slightest sound: the door handle beginning to turn while I still held the papers.