Page 16 of The Write Choice

I put the lasagna in the refrigerator, then close the door and lean my forehead against it, letting the cool steel calm me. I don’t cry frequently—though I do so more than Katie, apparently—but the absence of my family and the threat of their loss is pressing on me. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if Katie decided to stay in New York without me. It was easy to ignore while we were all together through Christmas, but now that we are truly apart, I know this is what it would feel like to be without them, and it’s crushing me.

I sense more than hear someone enter the kitchen. I glance over to see Daniel’s shoes, and I let out a puff of air through pursed lips, not bothering to lift my forehead from the refrigerator door.

“Hey,” he says quietly, coming over and putting a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll fix this.”

“I have to,” I murmur, pressing myself off the refrigerator door and meeting Daniel’s gaze. “There’s no other option for me.”

Daniel takes a breath as if to speak, but Mac’s voice floating from another room interrupts him. “Hey, guys? Come here for a minute.”

We follow her voice through the living room to a smaller, adjacent room. There are huge windows along one wall, and light is streaming in, illuminating the empty space.

“This is a great room,” Mac is saying. Her hair looks like it’s on fire from the natural afternoon light, and I wish Katie were here to see it. It’s something she’d love to paint.

“It is,” I agree, looking around the room again.

“Daniel built me a library in a room kind of like this. It’s my favorite room in the house.” She smiles at him, and he looks back at her so intensely, I almost ask if they want me to give them some privacy. She shakes herself out of it, though, and looks around the room again. “I was thinking, maybe you could build her a library, too, or something else she might like. It might help for her to have a space that’s just hers. Something from you.”

I take in the room again, with its perfect light, high ceilings, and blank walls.

Daniel is still looking at Mac like she hung the stars, but right now, I have to agree with him. It’s a brilliant suggestion. I knocked down walls between apartments in New York. Setting this space up would be a piece of cake.

“I don’t think she’d want a library,” I start slowly as they both look at me. “But I can think of something else she might like.”

Chapter 6

Katie

There’s living with the workaholic father of your children and thinking he’s no help, and then there’s living eight hundred miles away from the workaholic father of your children and actually having no help.

By the time New Year’s Eve rolls around, I’m about ready to change our flights and meet Brandon early. It’s sheer stubbornness that keeps me from doing so, but I’m tempted. Very tempted.

I’m tempted to take a drink more than once, too. The only reason I don’t is because I don’t want the kids to see me like that. But it feels like a losing battle with each passing day.

It wouldn’t be so bad if everything wasn’t working against me. The kids are home on winter break. The cars and most of our important belongings were shipped out early so we would have them there without having to drive halfway across the country with two small children—the only thing that seems like more of a nightmare than the single-parent life I’m currently living. And the weather is garbage. It’s not even pretty snow; it’s brown slush as far as the eye can see and just on this side of too cold to spend any length of time outside.

Thank goodness for screen time. Though, if I have to watch the toddler version of super dogs one more time, I’m going to lose my mind.

To Brandon’s credit, he calls twice a day like clockwork. The kids miss him and look forward to talking to him, and he never lets them down. He calls in the morning before he leaves for the office, and then he calls at night to read them a bedtime story. The kids take that evening call from Mason’s bed because it’s big enough for both of them. Christine is usually adorably asleep before the end of it, and Mason and Brandon like to spend some time quietly chatting. I usually try to make myself busy elsewhere, and Mason has always already hung up the phone by the time I sneak in to carry Christine to her room.

I don’t ask if Mason is hanging up because he doesn’t understand that the grown-ups should talk, or if Brandon doesn’t want to talk to me at all. I don’t know if I want the answer.

It doesn’t matter, anyway. I have so much work to do to get the kids and myself ready to leave that I don’t have time to dwell on it for too long.

By the time we’ve boarded the plane to Chicago, I’m left with no choice but to admit two things to myself: one, my threat to leave Brandon and come back to New York on my own might have been empty, and two, I miss him. A lot.

Before long, we’re in the air, and I’m staring off into space. I’m holding a sleeping Christine in my lap and contemplating my life choices when the flight attendant taps me on the shoulder.

“Anything to drink, ma’am?”

She could be talking about any liquid I could put in my mouth, but my brain goes straight to how great a mimosa would taste right now. I shake myself a little, trying to jostle that thought out of my head. This is why I try not to leave the house. It’s everywhere, and I can’t escape it.

I paste on a fake smile. “No, I’m good. Thanks.”

“Can I have an apple juice?” Mason asks, too loudly. Christine shifts at the sound, but thankfully doesn’t wake. I nod, and the flight attendant writes it down, then moves to take the next order.

Christine mercifully sleeps through the whole flight while Mason watches a few movies on his tablet with his headphones on. She’s still groggy when we land, so I carry her to baggage claim to wait for our suitcases. Just as I’m trying to mentally calculate how I’m going to wheel my suitcase while carrying a half-sleeping toddler and keeping an eye on a seven-year-old, a young man steps into my line of sight.

“Excuse me, ma’am?”