Page 3 of Soaring Free
“Hi, babe. I’m sorry. I know, I’m late. I saw the dinner on the calendar, but we had a big break in the case this afternoon and tomorrow’s cross examination has to be flawless.” Shane is one of the highest paid white-collar criminal defense attorneys in the entire state. He’s very good at his job, but it also requires him to be extremely dedicated to his position.
“That’s great, but did you notice the date on the calendar? This dinner was important to me, can you please wrap up your meeting and come home, honey?”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. Listen, tell whoever’s birthday it is that I’m sorry I missed it, and I’ll catch the next Callahan gathering, lord knows there’s enough of them. Have fun with your family and I’ll try to be quiet when I get home. Give the girls a kiss from me.” Is he serious right now? I’m stunned at his dismissal of my request and by the fact that my husband has absolutely forgotten it is our wedding anniversary. “Thanks for always being so understanding, babe. Love you, but I really need to get back to it. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Oh. Uh … okay.” And before I can even say anything else, I hear the phone getting set back in the cradle except it doesn’t disconnect the call, the handset must be slightly ajar.
I hear Kyle ask Shane, “Is everything okay at home? Do you need to go? We can continue this in the morning.”
“Oh, it’s nothing, just my wife being high maintenance because I missed some dinner thing that she put on my calendar, but it’s fine. If she’s pissed about it tomorrow, I’m sure some designer handbag will buy my ticket out of the doghouse.”
Laughter.
There’s laughter at his comment and I can’t be sure, but I think one of the laughs I hear belongs to my own husband. “Can someone pull up the report the detective referenced in his testimony today? No, not that one, the revised version that he mentioned regarding the—”
I hang up before I hear even more how seamlessly my husband discarded my requests and try to keep my composure as the reality that he has totally forgotten our wedding anniversary sinks in.
And how easily he dismissed me.
I take a deep breath; I look around my empty house and decide I don’t really need to hold back the tears because no one is going to see them anyway. I’m not hysterical, but as I clean up dinner and put away the food, a steady stream of tears flows down myface as I host an epic pity party for myself. I grab the remaining wine and step out to my favorite lounger by the pool to drink my sorrows away for a bit.
An hour after speaking to my husband, he still isn’t home. There was a small glimmer of hope that he would realize the date, figure it out, and rush home to apologize, but eventually, that glimmer burns out like the candles I extinguished after the phone call.
I lock up the house and head upstairs. I wipe off my perfectly applied makeup that no one saw and grab a scrunchie to throw my hair into a loose bun piled up on my head. But as I brush my teeth, I decide I may be letting him off the hook just a little too easily. He wants to dismiss and overlook me? That’s a bold yet foolish decision on his part.
Who does he think he married?
After all, if I’m already labeled the high-maintenance wife then a little drama doesn’t matter if it makes me feel better. I grab the brightest ruby red lipstick I can find in my makeup bag and write in obnoxiously large cursiveHappy 13thAnniversaryacross the bathroom mirror. I turn out the lights and crawl into bed alone. Not even my Kindle can cheer me up, and after reading the same page three times, I give up.
With a huff, I lay down and curl into a ball on my side, facing away from my husband’s side of the bed. My eyes will be puffy and red in the morning, but I can’t stop the tears. Forget high maintenance, I know he treats his staff that he doesn’t even like better than he treated me tonight. I swipe the tears blurring my vision, feeling completely alone. He didn’t just overlook our anniversary, tonight he overlooked his wife while also breaking her heart a little in the process.
The warm trail of tears creates a small puddle on my pillowcase, and I don’t even try to swipe them away at this point. This is definitely not how I ever imagined happily ever after to look like in my life … and it’s not at all how I thought it would feel.
Chapter three
Last October
Three months prior to penthouse discovery
“Mama, can I bring my Princess Barbie with us? I think she’d really like Cider Fest,” Lucy pleads her case, but if I let her bring her brand-new toy she just got for her sixth birthday last week, it is guaranteed that she will either lose some of the Barbie’s accessories or the Barbie herself. She’s trying to use the puppy-dog pleading eyes her big sisters are experts at, but thankfully, I can still say no to Lucy’s pleas.
“How about this, why don’t you bring her in the car, and then we will know exactly where she and all of her many fabulous accessories are? Does that sound like a good compromise?” I really don’t want to deal with a meltdown; we are already running a little late, but Shane said he was going to meet us at the house so he could change and we could all go as a family. Lucy nods, and scampers off to grab a sweatshirt, already over the debate that could have potentially ended in tears.
“We’re going to miss everything if we wait any longer, Mama. If they run out of the mini pumpkins to paint, you know Emily will lose her mind.” Olivia glances at the clock and gives me a look. I love that she’s a little mother hen in her own right, and as an older sister myself, I get it, but she has the rest of her life to be an adult. I want my kids to stay kids for as long as possible. I squeeze her shoulder and try to put on abelievable smile.
“You know what, you’re right. I’ll text your daddy and he can just walk over from the office. Go tell your sisters to load up the car, and we will be on our way.” Olivia nods with a tight smile, and I make a mental note to talk to her about that later. Nothing gets by that one, and I know she’s used to her daddy being late, but lately she’s been commenting on it more to me.
Cider Fest is a fall festival in my hometown Forrest Falls, Tennessee. Our town is small enough to have all the charm one could ever want in a little community, and just an hour west of Nashville, we have the proximity to the big city. It really is the best of both worlds. The annual Cider Fest is always well attended by families in the area and our entire downtown really goes all out for the event. The town sets up a stage on the baseball field, and last year my brother even arranged for mega popstar Fiona Skye to put on a surprise performance, so of course my girls are bouncing at the idea that maybe their Uncle Jack will come through with another surprise this year. Personally, I’d love to see Tinsley Sinclair perform—as would my girls—but I know she’s still on her tour in Canada. Jack hasn’t mentioned anyone to me, but he also didn’t give me a heads-up when Fiona Skye showed up last year, and with my brother, anything is possible.
We pull into the lot behind Jack’s building in downtown Forrest Falls. His company has offices around the world, and his headquarters are in Nashville, but he has a satellite office here. He also lives in the top floor penthouse, which is why I really think he built the building in the first place.
Just as I’m pulling into a parking spot, my cell phone rings with a blocked number, but in my world, that could be anyone from my brother Liam calling from some undisclosed location or my husband calling from one of their conference room phone lines. “Hello?” I answered on the third ring, but no one responds to my greeting. “Hello?” I’m smart enough not to say more than that. Liam has drilled safety tips into us beyond what was ever probably necessary, but I know all about how scammers can record your voice saying your name, then boom—they have access to all your bank accounts or something crazy like that. Noone responds on the other end, so I disconnect and decide if it was someone that needed to reach me, they would call back. I get out of my car, closing the door with my hip as I wave to the security team, and spot my brother Ryan getting out of his car across the lot.
“Who’s ready to eat way too much sugar?” Ryan calls out to my girls and they race over to chatter about all the things they want to check out. He picks up Lucy, while my middle daughter, Emily, practically vibrates with excitement.
“Uncle Ryan, I found this picture of someone that painted their pumpkin to look like a cupcake, and I’m going to try and do it myself!” At eight years old, Emily is the artist of my three girls, and her big sister was right, she would be devastated if we missed out on the mini pumpkin painting.
I sent my husband a text before we left the house, but he hasn’t replied. He could at least acknowledge the text—or me. I shake my head as I see he still hasn’t done either and shove my phone in the back pocket of my jeans. “Let’s go find some pumpkins and hopefully some caramel corn too!” I declare with a smidge of false optimism. Ryan raises his eyebrows in question but doesn’t say anything in front my girls. “Auntie Vivi texted me that she and Eloise are in front of Thom’s Hardware waiting for us to paint pumpkins.”
