Part 1:
I personally drove my husband to the airport, stood there until his plane disappeared into the sky, and spent the next several days receiving affectionate messages from him in Seattle.
Then my young daughter pointed toward a stranger and whispered,
“Mommy… we need to rescue Daddy.”
The house had felt unusually empty that morning, wrapped in the kind of silence that only appears when someone you love is far away.
Eleven days had passed since I had driven Henry to the airport at five in the morning. Zoe had been asleep in the back seat, her face pressed against her stuffed rabbit. I still remembered kissing Henry goodbye at the curb while the sky was dark and the coffee in my travel mug was too hot to drink.
Every year, Henry’s company sent him to the same two-week business conference in Seattle.
I had booked his flight myself, printed his boarding pass, and packed his brown leather travel bag the night before he left.
As I folded his favorite navy jacket and placed it on top, I said,
“I’m not letting you lose another one.”
Henry looked at me from across the kitchen table while I threaded a needle.
“Sophia, seriously, I’m not going to lose another jacket.”
“You say that every time. You lost one just two weeks ago.”
I stitched a small piece of fabric into the inside of the collar and wrote his name on it in my own handwriting.
Henry Collins.
He laughed and shook his head, but he let me finish.
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