Chương 3
“You’re terrible at this.”
“I usually handle missed connections and misplaced passports.”
“This is both.”
That time the laugh escaped.
It lasted less than a second and ended with Rachel pressing her fist against her mouth.
Her eyes filled.
She looked away quickly.
Jordan said nothing.
The restraint undid her more effectively than sympathy would have.
Rachel wiped beneath one eye with the side of her thumb.
“I’m not doing this here.”
“All right.”
“I am not becoming some airport story people tell at dinner.”
“You’re already a story at least six people will tell at dinner.”
She looked at him.
He gave a small apologetic shrug.
“You tore a boarding pass from a mezzanine.”
“Fair.”
“Would you like me to arrange a car?”
Rachel glanced toward the international departure board.
Paris remained there in clean white letters.
ON TIME.
She had spent months planning that trip before Ethan canceled it.
A tiny hotel on the Left Bank because Ethan hated giant luxury hotels. Dinner booked at a restaurant his father had once described to them. Tickets to a jazz club Rachel pretended to enjoy more than she actually did because Ethan loved live trumpet.
Then three weeks ago he had stood at the kitchen island and said, “We’ll go another time.”
She had noticed he did not seem disappointed.
That had been clue number one, though she had called it paranoia.
Clue number two had arrived the previous night when a charge from the airline appeared temporarily on the credit card account they used for household expenses. Ethan had canceled Rachel’s ticket weeks earlier, but a same-day seat-selection charge showed up against the original reservation.
Rachel had clicked.
Seat 3A had been reassigned.
Not to her.
The airline site did not show the passenger’s name, but Ethan’s reservation remained active.
He had forgotten that Rachel still had the original printed passes in the burgundy wallet.
Forgotten, or assumed she would never look.
At 10:23 that morning, Rachel had called the airline.
The agent would not disclose another passenger’s information.
At 10:41 she called Ethan.
He said he was at the office.
At 10:58 she booked a car to the airport.
At 11:27 Jordan met her at the terminal because Rachel’s unused premium reservation still included concierge assistance.
At 11:34 Jordan spotted Ethan.
Now it was 12:16.
Forty-two minutes had rearranged seven years.
“Car,” Rachel said.
Jordan nodded.
Her phone vibrated again.
This time the screen showed a message from Ethan.
Vanessa thought we were separated. I was going to tell her the truth.
Rachel typed before she could stop herself.
When?
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
She locked the phone.
Jordan returned after making the transportation arrangements.
“There’ll be a car outside in six minutes.”
“Thank you.”
“You still have the Paris reservation under your name.”
Rachel looked at him.
“Your original ticket was canceled, but according to the record they can issue you a new ticket if you want to travel. There’ll be a fare difference.”
She stared at the departure board again.
“Today?”
“If you want.”
The idea struck her as so completely insane that for a moment she wanted to do it.
Board the plane.
Leave Ethan in the terminal.
Spend a week in Paris alone and post nothing and answer nobody.
But she pictured herself arriving at six in the morning after crying through an overnight flight, dragging a suitcase down a hotel hallway because she had made a theatrical decision while in shock.
“No.”
Jordan nodded.
“I want to go home.”
“All right.”
Then Rachel corrected herself.
“I think I want to go home.”
“That works too.”
Outside the terminal, August heat pressed against her coat.
She had dressed for the air-conditioning and the fantasy version of the day in which Ethan would look up, see her, laugh in surprise, and ask what the hell she was doing there before she showed him the replacement ticket she had considered buying.
Instead she climbed into a black sedan with the burgundy passport wallet in her lap.
Jordan closed the door.
Rachel lowered the window before the driver pulled away.
“Jordan.”
He leaned toward the opening.
“Thank you for not saying anything helpful.”
For the first time, he smiled.
“You’re welcome.”
The car entered airport traffic.
Rachel’s phone kept vibrating in her hand until she powered it off.
For the first ten minutes she stared out the window.
Then she noticed she was still wearing her wedding ring.
She turned it once around her finger.
Twice.
She left it there.
Taking it off felt like a decision.
She was not ready to make one simply because Ethan had made so many without her.
Their house was forty minutes from the airport in ordinary traffic and more than an hour away on a bad day. Traffic was bad.
Rachel sat through brake lights and highway construction while her mind tried to assemble explanations.
Maybe the affair was recent.
Maybe Vanessa truly did not know.
Maybe Ethan had panicked and made one catastrophic choice after another.
Maybe the marriage had been dying while Rachel was busy assuming quiet meant safe.
At one point she opened the center console in the car looking for tissues and found individually wrapped peppermints.
She took one.
It tasted aggressively cheerful.
She almost laughed again.
By the time the driver turned into her neighborhood, Rachel had eaten four.
The house looked exactly as it had that morning.
Gray siding. White trim. Ethan’s tomato plants failing heroically beside the back fence because he always planted them in the wrong place and refused Rachel’s suggestion that six hours of shade might be the issue.
A package sat on the porch.
Rachel carried it inside automatically.
Kitchen filters.
She had ordered them Tuesday.
She put the box on the counter.
The coffee mug Ethan had used that morning was still in the sink.
A dark half-moon of coffee remained at the bottom.
May you like
Rachel stood looking at it for nearly a minute.
Then she washed the mug.
