I would board the plane, sit in the coach cabin, and wait until we reached thirty thousand feet before I let him know I was there. I could picture the look on his face when he walked down the aisle after the seatbelt sign went off, finding his wife sitting in 14C.
I opened our joint savings account tab on the browser first, checking the balance. The screen displayed sixty-two thousand dollars, the exact amount we had kept there since we began talking about updating the kitchen cabinets last spring. It was a comfortable number, one that made me feel safe even when the house was too quiet.
I clicked back to the booking screen and typed in our credit card details.
The screen flickered, confirming seat 14C.
I closed the laptop and took a slow sip of the tea, which had already gone lukewarm.
The plan was foolish, perhaps, but it felt like a way to hold onto something that was slowly slipping away.
The next afternoon, the airport terminal was crowded with holiday travelers. The cold leather car seats of my sedan had chilled my back during the drive from our house to the long-term parking lot. I had spent thirty minutes searching for a spot in the economy lot, my hands tight on the steering wheel, wondering if I should just turn around and go home.
But I had already made my choice.
The boutique inside the main terminal smelled of expensive lavender soap and new leather, a sharp contrast to the smell of jet fuel outside the double glass doors.
Sarah, the shop owner, held up the hanger, her silver bracelets clinking together as she moved the garment under the spotlights.
“It is silk,” Sarah said, smoothing the skirt of the red dress. “It is the color of a cherry.”
I touched the fabric, feeling the cool slide of it against my thumb. It was bright, much brighter than anything I usually wore, but an anniversary demanded something different. I tried it on in the small changing room, watching my reflection in the three-way mirror. The silk clung to my waist and fell to my knees, making me look like a woman who had somewhere important to go.
