Chapter 4 - WHY LINDA MOVED INTO OUR HOUSE
Linda moved in when I was twenty-four weeks pregnant.
She said it was temporary.
Her condo had water damage after a pipe burst.
At first, I was grateful.
She cooked.
Folded baby clothes.
Went grocery shopping.
Ryan relaxed when she was around.
Then Linda started watching me.
Not obviously.
Carefully.
“What did your doctor say?”
“Who called?”
“Where are you going?”
“Why are you wearing makeup?”
“Did you tell James about last night?”
She also began correcting my memory.
I would say Ryan came home at one.
Linda said eleven-thirty.
I would say Ryan shouted.
Linda said he raised his voice because I was hysterical.
I would say Ryan took my phone.
Linda said he held it after I threw it.
Once, after an argument, she looked at me and said:
“You know pregnancy can create paranoia.”
I went cold.
“Do you think I’m paranoid?”
“I think you’re under pressure.”
That was how Mark—different story. No. Here, Ryan—operated too.
Never name the accusation fully.
Let me finish it myself.
Then Linda began attending my medical appointments.
I stopped her after the second.
She cried in the parking lot.
“I’m trying to support you.”
“I need some privacy.”
“From me?”
“Yes.”
She told Ryan.
That night he said:
“Why are you suddenly building secrets?”
The word affair appeared a week later.
Not as an accusation.
As a joke.
Nathan texted me a contractor referral.
Ryan saw his name.
“Well, your boyfriend came through.”
I stared.
“What did you say?”
“Relax.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“Then why are you so defensive?”
The trap was elegant.
Anything I said became evidence.
Linda joined in slowly.
“You always light up when Nathan calls.”
“He is fifty-three.”
“So?”
“He has a wife.”
Linda shrugged.
“Married men cheat.”
I called Dad that night.
Almost.
Then stopped.
Because Dad knew Nathan.
If I mentioned the accusation, he would explode.
Ryan would say I ran to my father again.
So I stayed silent.
That was when Linda’s real purpose in the house became clear.
She wasn’t there because of plumbing.
The condo repairs had finished weeks earlier.
She was there because Ryan needed a witness.
Every fight now had two versions.
Mine.
And theirs.
Two against one.
By twenty-seven weeks, I had begun recording small notes in a paper planner hidden inside an old maternity-clothes box.
June 3 — Ryan took debit card.
June 7 — grabbed arm.
June 11 — Linda said I imagined argument.
June 15 — Ryan asked for Mom’s brokerage account again.
June 18 — Ryan said Nathan “waiting to take his family.”
I wrote because my memory was becoming something they discussed more confidently than I did.
Then the most frightening note:
June 26 — Linda asked how mental-health evaluations work during pregnancy.
May you like
I did not know why.
Not yet.
