The two-hour flight passed in a blur of gray clouds and bitter reflection. As the plane taxied down the runway, the landscape shifting from abstract mist to concrete reality, a new thought took root.
If I ever fly again, it will be for me.
The moment we landed, Elijah snatched the paper from my hand. He moved with frantic energy I hadn't seen in decades—stopping strangers, shoving the address in their faces, demanding directions to the village.
I watched him, a bitter taste in my mouth.
From the day I married him, I had carried the weight of our existence. I nursed his parents on their deathbeds. I managed the finances, the repairs, the children's fevers, their schooling. I was the foundation of the Henson family.
He had been a guest in his own home.
Even on the day I went into labor, he told me he had a "critical project meeting." He arrived three hours after our son was born, smelling of office coffee and indifference.
But now? For a woman he hadn't seen in fifty years, he couldn't bear to waste a single second.
We found our way to the village, and the local gossip painted a grim picture before we even reached her door.