Twenty-Four Shadows. Tanya J. Peterson

she heard the knock at the door, she knew it was Max, but she found her heart pounding with the hope that it was somehow Isaac. She jogged to the front door and, expectant yet hesitant, threw it open. Crestfallen that it was not her husband, she covered her face with her hands and muttered, “Morning, Max.”

      “Oh, Reese.” Max’s voice sounded more disheartened than it had in the last two days, and that was saying a lot. “No Isaac?” She shook her head slowly, and Max reached out with one arm and pulled her close. “I’m sorry.”

      Reese grunted. “I don’t know how to feel, Max. I’m worried sick, and I’m totally pissed off. Should I be afraid? Sad? Anxious? Angry? None of the above? All of the above?” She pulled away from Max so she could look directly at him.

      “Yes.”

      “What?”

      “The answer is yes. To everything. You have no idea what’s going on, so every single one of those emotions makes sense.” Max adjusted Elise on his hip and kissed her chubby cheek. “You know what? I should stay home from work today. I don’t think you need to deal with a baby today. I can take Dominic off your hands, too.”

      “Max, that’s kind of you to offer, but I need the distractions today. Please. I want to keep things normal for Dominic, too.”

      As if on cue, Dominic trotted down the hall. “Good morning, Mommy. Good morning, Uncle Max. Mommy, where’s Daddy?”

      Reese shot a look at Max before turning her attention to her son. “Oh. Um, Daddy left for work already, Tiger. He had to go in early.”

      “Oh. Okay.” He skipped back toward the kitchen, singing as he went.

      Reese blew out a breath of air. “Oh, man. I do need to keep things normal, so let me take Elise and get the morning going. I just hope Isaac returns today.”

      For the second time in two days, Reese found herself relying on the dreaded television for a distraction. Dominic certainly didn’t seem to mind when, after breakfast, she popped in the movie Cars, and Reese absolutely wanted him to be otherwise occupied when she made the phone call she was about to make.

      Once the kiddos were content with their attention on things other than her, Reese rushed to the kitchen, dialed the number to Isaac’s office faster than she’d ever dialed a number before, and paced as she waited for the receptionist to answer. She chewed her thumbnail. When the call went through, Reese tried to sound nonchalant when she spoke, “Good morning. May I speak to Isaac Bittman, please?”

      “I’m sorry. Mr. Bittman is no longer with us.”

      “Um, what?”

      “Mr. Bittman is no longer here, ma’am.”

      Reese furrowed her eyebrows. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. May I speak to Aubrey Watson, please?”

      “Of course. May I ask who’s calling?”

      “Yes. This is Reese Bittman. Isaac’s wife.” Her voice sounded much more hostile than she had intended it to be. While she was on hold, she barely heard the aggravating baseball stadium music. She instead heard her own heart beating wildly in her head. Did Isaac really no longer work for the Conifers? Since when? And why? She needed to get to the bottom of this, yet she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answers. Had he, just like Gretchen, quit his job and taken off for a new life? Oh my God, did they take off together? She was overcome by a strong sensation of vertigo. Just as she was lowering herself into a chair, Aubrey Watson came on the line.

      “Hello, Reese. I understand you called looking for Isaac.”

      “That’s right.”

      “I’m deeply sorry. Apparently he hasn’t told you yet. We had to let him go yesterday. He no longer works for this company.”

      Reese’s heart, just moments ago beating so wildly, felt like it completely stopped. Isaac was fired yesterday? Why? And did he think he couldn’t come home because of it?

      “Reese?”

      Reese cleared her throat. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting here silent, leaving Aubrey Watson hanging on the other side of the line. Screw Aubrey Watson. Frankly, Reese didn’t give a hill of beans if Aubrey Watson sat there all day. She did need to know something, though, so she cleared her throat again and asked, “May I ask why you fired him?”

      “I’m sorry, Reese. We don’t disclose that information.”

      “But he’s my husband.” There wasn’t a part of her that wasn’t tense with apprehension, and, as if of their own volition, her hands and fingers were opening and closing and picking at the bottom of her shirt. She had a very fleeting image of her mother on the phone when Reese was young; her mom constantly pulled and stretched and twisted the phone cord around her wrist. Reese would love to have a phone cord right now. That, or her mother to talk to, but she knew all too well that that would only end in disaster. It was probably for the best that her parents lived on the other side of the planet.

      “Yes. I understand that he’s your husband. And it’s our policy not to disclose such information. If you’d like to know, the person to ask is Isaac. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to enter a meeting.”

      Reese heard the click, but she made no move to hang up the phone. “I can’t ask Isaac,” she whispered to the empty kitchen, “because he hasn’t come home.” Everything blurred. To avoid being busted by her son, she dashed into the bathroom, locked the door, yanked a towel off the rod, buried her face in it, and sobbed. What was happening? Isaac fired? Why? Had he done something horrible, or was he downsized? And why didn’t he come home after it happened? Did he think she would be mad at him? Certainly he knew her better than that. Or did he? And did she know him? Maybe not as well as she thought she did.

      She pressed the towel hard into her face in an attempt to stop the tears and rein in her thoughts. This was getting her nowhere. At the moment, she had a five-year-old boy and a nine-month-old girl to care for. She allowed herself a few moments to center herself, and then she emerged from the bathroom to check on the kids with false confidence and enthusiasm.

      All day she felt as though she was merely going through the motions. Her thoughts and emotions were nowhere near Dominic and Elise, and those thoughts and emotions ricocheted wildly in her mind and in her heart, zinging like a pinball and lighting up the bells of worry and anger and confusion and hurt and love and hate, again and again ad nauseam. She didn’t want the high score in this twisted pinball game. When Max came to pick up Elise at the end of the day and offered to stay, she was both too numb and too upset to take him up on his offer. Besides, while the majority of her being was focused on Isaac at the moment, she was still very much aware of and in love with her son, and he needed her undivided attention, especially now.

      Later that night, as she read Dominic a story and tucked him tightly into his cozy little bed, her heart ached for him and the fact that his beloved daddy had disappeared. When, in a voice already fading into slumber, he asked, “Mommy, where’s Daddy, and when is he coming home?” Reese had to struggle to stay steady. As horrible as it felt to lie to her innocent son, the idea of telling him the truth felt even worse. She was relieved, in an agonized sort of way, when he accepted her story that Daddy was on a business trip for the team and didn’t know how long he had to be gone but he loved his Tiger very much and couldn’t wait to come home. Then she tiptoed out of his room, rushed to her own, dove under the covers without bothering to shed her clothes, and cried herself to sleep.

      She woke up to the worst headache of her entire life. As she groaned and rolled onto her back, she brought her fingers to her head and massaged her temples. Eyes closed, she muttered, “God, Isaac, how do you deal with your headaches? I think I’m going to die, and I don’t even want to get up. I see why you need to sleep them off.” The response, nothing but silence, screamed loudly in the room. She twisted over and, with a grunt of frustration, punched Isaac’s pillow. It was cool from lack of use. She picked it up and flung it at the wall. The muted thud as it hit was nothing like the champagne-bubble-like sounds of morning she was