Instead of turbulence in my marriage, I anticipated it in the air. While we were boarding with twin kids and diaper bags, I was left in charge of the mess, and my husband vanished behind a curtain to enter business class.
You’ve probably had the feeling that your lover is going to do something crazy, but your mind won’t believe it. My twin was strapped to my chest, gnawing on my sunglasses, and I had baby wipes protruding from my pocket as I stood at Terminal C’s gate.
Eric, my husband, and I, together with our 18-month-old twins, Ava and Mason, were about to take our first real family vacation. To see his parents, who reside in one of those pastel-colored retirement communities close to Tampa, we were traveling to Florida.
His father is eagerly awaiting the opportunity to meet his grandchildren. Mason now addresses all white-haired men he encounters with “Papa” because he FaceTimes so frequently.
Accordingly, we were already under stress. Car seats, strollers, diaper bags, etc. Eric leaned over at the gate and whispered, “I’m just gonna check something real quick,” before disappearing behind the counter.
Have I got any suspicions? The truth is, no. I was too preoccupied with hoping that nobody’s diaper exploded before to takeoff.
Afterward, boarding began.
With an overly bright smile, the gate agent scanned his ticket. You’ll be okay with the kids, right? “Baby, I’ll see you on the other side. I managed to snag an upgrade,” Eric added, turning to face me with this smug little grin.
My eyes blinked. I actually laughed. It seemed to me like a joke.
It wasn’t.
He kissed my cheek before I could even comprehend it, then walked off into business class, vanishing behind that arrogant little curtain like a traitor prince.
The cosmos watched as I broke, two kids melting down, a stroller falling apart in slow motion. In his mind, he had escaped punishment. I see now, but Karma was already on board.
My last bit of patience was circling the drain by the time I sank into seat 32B, sweating through my hoodie and saw both babies battling over a sippy cup.
At once, Ava spilled half of her apple juice across my lap.
“Cool,” I whispered as I used a burp cloth that already had a sour milk odor to wipe my jeans.
Before pressing the call button, the man seated beside me smiled at me in pain.
His question to the flight attendant was, “Can I be moved?” “It’s… a bit noisy here.”
I might have shed a tear. However, I simply nodded and let him go, wondering inwardly that I could join him by crawling into the overhead trash.
My phone buzzed after that.
Hey Eric.
“Food is amazing up here. They even gave me a warm towel 😍”
A heated towel— during the time I was cleaning spit-up off my chest with a baby wipe from the floor.
I made no response. His message made me look at it as if it were about to explode.
After after, I got a ping again, this time from my dad.
“Send me a video of my grandbabies on the plane! I want to see them flying like big kids!”
With a groan, I turned on my camera and recorded a little clip of Ava pounding on her tray table like a miniature DJ, Mason chewing on his plush giraffe as if it were a debtor, and me looking pale and frantic, with my hair in a greasy topknot and my soul half out of my body.
You mean Eric? Not even a faint hint of it.
I mailed it.
After a few seconds, he simply replied, “👍.”
That was it, I thought.
It wasn’t, to give you a hint.
At last, we touched down, and I had to manage three big luggage, two exhausted toddlers, and an uncooperative stroller. I appeared as though I had just left a combat zone. Yawning and stretching as if he had just received a complete body massage, Eric walked out of the gate behind me.
“Man, that was a great flight,” he remarked. He laughed and asked, “Did you try the pretzels? Oh wait…”
I avoided eye contact with him. I couldn’t. My father-in-law was waiting, smiling, arms out wide, at baggage claim.
He said, “Look at my grandbabies!” and gathered Ava in his arms. “And look at you, Mama — champion of the skies.”
Eric then moved forward, arms out. “Hey, Pops!”
But his dad refused to move. He merely looked at him. stone-faced.
“Son,” he remarked, icily, “we’ll talk later.”
Indeed, we would.
After I had cleaned my face from the day and the twins had finally fallen asleep that evening, I heard it.
“Eric. In the study. Now.”
There was no need for my father-in-law’s speech to be loud. There was a tone to it that made you sit up straight and make sure your socks were clean. Eric didn’t dispute. He whispered something to himself and walked slowly behind him, like a child going to school.
While I pretended to browse through my phone in the living room, the muffled shouting began almost instantly.
“You think that was funny?”
“I thought it wasn’t a big—”
“—left your wife with two toddlers—”
“She said she could handle—”
“That’s not the damn point, Eric!”
I was frozen.
It took fifteen more minutes for the door to open. Cool as ever, my FIL was the first to step out when it did. With a hand on my shoulder as if I had just won a battle, he approached me directly and whispered softly, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I took care of it.”
There was no eye contact from Eric. He went silently straight upstairs.
All was strangely normal the following morning. Chaos, cartoons, and breakfast. “We’re all going out for dinner tonight! My treat!” said Eric’s mother, after which she chirped from the kitchen.
At once, Eric became alert. “Nice! Somewhere fancy?”
“You’ll see.” she simply grinned.
Our destination was this lovely restaurant by the ocean. Live jazz, candlelight, white tablecloths—the kind of setting where people whisper rather than speak.
To collect drink orders, the waiter arrived. It was my FIL who went first.
“I’ll have your house bourbon, neat.”
His wife added her voice. “Iced tea for me, please.”
I caught his eye. “Sparkling water, right?” he asked.
“Perfect,” I replied, appreciating the quiet.
With a stony expression, he turned to face Eric.
“And for him… a glass of milk. Since he clearly can’t handle being an adult.”
There was a brief period of dense quiet.
And then—laughing. In the back of her menu, his wife laughed. I almost spittled my water. In fact, the waiter smiled.
Eric seemed to want to scuttle beneath the table. Throughout the lunch, he remained silent. That wasn’t the finest part, though.
My FIL surprised me two days later when I was on the porch folding laundry.
“I just wanted to let you know that I updated the will,” he replied, leaning on the rail.
My eyes blinked. “What?”
“There’s a trust for Ava and Mason now. College, first car, whatever they need. And for you—well, let’s just say I made sure the kids and their mama are always taken care of.”
It left me unable to speak. He grinned.
“Oh, and Eric’s cut? Shrinking by the day… until he remembers what it means to put his family first.”
Eric’s memory was going to get much sharper, let’s just say that.
Eric was the epitome of domestic zeal on the morning of our flight home.
He said, “I’ll carry the car seats,” hauling one up as if it were light. “You want me to take Mason’s diaper bag too?”
Despite raising an eyebrow, I remained silent. I didn’t have the energy for irony, and Ava was teething and grumpy.
He was standing next to me at the check-in booth as if he hadn’t abandoned me and two yelling kids five days at the beginning. After balancing Mason on my hip and handing over our passports, the official gave Eric his boarding pass and paused.
She remarked brightly, “Oh, it appears that you have been upgraded once more, sir.”
Promo
Eric took a blink. “Wait, what?”
The pass was given to him by the agent, carefully placed inside a thick paper sleeve. I noticed that his face went white the moment his eyes met the words on the front.
Putting Ava on my shoulder, I questioned, “What is it?”
He smiled strangely and twitchyly as he held it.
The following phrases were boldly written in black ink across the ticket sleeve:
“Business class again. Enjoy. But this one’s one-way. You’ll explain it to your wife.”
After reading the ticket, I quickly recognized the handwriting.
Whispering, “Oh my God,” “Your dad did not…”
Whispering, “He did,” Eric rubbed the nape of his neck. “He said I could ‘relax in luxury’… all the way to the hotel I’m checking into alone for a few days to ‘think about priorities.'”
I laughed because I couldn’t resist. Loudly. Manically, perhaps?
“I guess Karma has completely relaxed now,” I remarked as I passed him with both children.
Eric dragged his roller luggage awkwardly behind him.
He whispered, “So… any chance I can earn my way back to economy?” as he leaned closer me at the gate, right before boarding.
