The Liar's Wife (Adam Levine Dark Romance)

Chapter 10: Make You Feel My Love

Adam padded into his bedroom and quietly shut the door behind him. He hadn’t gone into the library intending to pick up his wife’s old set of Adele CDs, but the conversation with the nanny had made him change his mind on impulse. “The name Adele,” he had said just now. “Her mother wanted to call her that.”

Of course, the nanny hadn’t asked him who picked the name, but why. He hadn’t really answered the question. But that was one particular memory he wasn’t quite ready to share.

Adam popped one of the CDs into his stereo and advanced it to the track he had in mind, letting the memories wash over him as he listened to the song.

When the rain is blowing in your face,
And the whole world is on your case,
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love.

***

November 2013

Adam snuck another glance at Jane in the passenger seat as he pulled onto the busy Hollywood Freeway. She had her head turned slightly away from him to look out her window, but he could see the contented smile still lingering on her lips. He reached down and took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze as he drove.

She hadn’t been smiling an hour earlier as they’d made their way to the doctor’s appointment. Her mood had been up and down for the past two weeks, ever since that home pregnancy test had come out positive on Halloween night. She’d been peeing on those little plastic sticks three times a day since then, staring at the lines like they were tea leaves, holding the secret to her future. “Does the line seem lighter?” she’d asked him yesterday, anxiously handing him the pregnancy test she’d been scrutinizing as he was trying to shave. Lighter? Darker? He couldn’t tell the difference.

“It looks like a line,” he’d tried to reassure her. “A line is a line. Isn’t that what you read on the internet?”

“Shouldn’t it be getting darker though?”

“Jane, let’s just wait and see what the doctor has to say.” She’d nodded in agreement, but he could see the wheels turning in her head behind her failed attempt at a smile. He knew what she was thinking. She’d be peeing on another one as soon as he was out the house.

The doctor’s appointment couldn’t have come too soon. They’d made their way this afternoon to the discreet, unmarked medical office and sat holding hands in the cheery waiting room. He’d kept up a steady stream of banter the whole time, trying to distract her, but she’d barely managed more than nods and one-word answers as she’d sat there gripping his hand.

It wasn’t until the doctor had her flat on her back with an ultrasound wand that the tension had started to melt away from her face. “Shows what I know!” the doctor had joked, as he’d pointed to a tiny, flickering splotch on the monitor. A heartbeat, he’d explained. “Looks like you’re just about…  6 weeks along.”

Jane had sat there gazing at the ultrasound monitor as the doctor talked, but Adam hadn’t been able to take his eyes off his wife’s face. There it was at last –the smile he’d been missing – the sun coming out after months and months of cloudy weather.

“I thought you said she couldn’t get pregnant,” Adam had said to the doctor, suddenly overcome with a burning indignation. “Why’d you have to tell her that?” he’d wanted to say. “Why’d you have to put her through all that when it wasn’t even true?”

The doctor had ignored the subtext behind his question, playing it off with a little shrug. “Shows what I know,” he’d said again. “Some things in medicine are still more art than science.” Jane had beamed back at the doctor happily, but Adam had just wanted to pick him up by the neck and squeeze until it wiped that stupid smile off his face. “Shows what I know.” Yeah, well, I guess you know how to turn a woman’s life upside down, he’d thought. You know how to drive a mack truck into the middle of what should’ve been a happy first year of marriage.