It sat on the porch for two days while she stacked other items beside it, crowning the pile with his most prized golf trophy. She half expected the homeowner’s association to complain about the mess, but Ben managed to sweep everything up before that happened. He came when Becca was away, so there were no more angry words. In fact, there were no more words at all for several months. Becca had just determined to open the lines of communication again, preparing for the inevitable divorce, when she got a call from Kendra Wallace-the someone else-who between sobs, shrieks, and tears explained that Ben had died in her arms of an apparent heart attack. At forty-two.

For a good ten minutes Becca heard nothing else. Nothing past the fact that Ben was dead. She surfaced to finally understand that Kendra’s wailing was along the “poor me, what am I going to do” line. “The baby,” Becca said, moving from shock back to reality. Ben was going to be a father…

“The baby is mine!” Kendra snapped sharply, as if aware of Becca’s desire to have a child of her own.

“Do you have family?” Someone to help you?

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“You need someone-”

“I need Ben and he’s dead!” she said, sniffing and sobbing. “And…and…you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”

“Your lawyer? Why…” Then it hit her. The divorce wasn’t even final, the arrangement for separating their finances not quite nailed down. Oh, Jesus.

Kendra slammed down the phone.

Becca was left staring into space. She was aware Kendra was going to come after her financially, but if the child was Ben’s, so be it. Then when, after two months, she received no call, she dialed Kendra on the number that Caller ID had coughed up and learned it belonged to Kendra’s mother, who told Becca that Kendra had moved to Los Angeles with her new boyfriend. “What about the baby?” Becca asked, and was told, in a chilly voice, that Kendra’s boyfriend was adopting the little boy and it was none…of…her…concern. The lawyers would handle everything.