The banner was crooked, covered in colorful stars, and decorated with letters that Noah had insisted on writing himself.
WELCOME HOME, DAD!
Lily had drawn a picture of the four of us holding hands.
I placed the banner in a cupboard so the children wouldn't accidentally reveal the surprise.
I planned Jeremy's favorite dinner.
I washed the sheets, cleared the laundry pile, and bought the coffee he liked.
I even went to the hairdresser.
It felt silly to admit how much I cared about looking good for my own husband, but I wanted him to see me and remember that we were more than two tired adults coordinating family responsibilities across different time zones.
We were still a couple.
We were still the people who had chosen each other.
At least, that was what I believed.
Chapter Four: The Last Call Before He Came Home
The night before his flight, Jeremy called while packing his suitcase.
His face appeared on my screen, slightly blurred at first before the connection stabilized.
Behind him, the room looked almost empty.
"Tomorrow," he said, grinning. "Can you believe it?"
I was sitting on the sofa with a basket of folded clothes beside me.
"Not until I see you."
"You will."
He held up a shirt.
"Do you think I should bring this back, or can I leave it here?"
"Bring it back. You always say you might need something later."
He laughed.
"You're right."
I watched him fold the shirt and place it in his suitcase.
For a few seconds, I simply looked at him.
His hair was a little longer than I remembered. There were faint shadows beneath his eyes, and he seemed thinner around the face.
I wondered whether he had been eating properly.
"Are you happy to be coming home?" I asked.
He looked at the screen.
"Of course I am."
"Because you sound tired."
"I am tired. But I'm ready to be home."
I wanted to ask whether he had missed us as much as we had missed him.
Instead, I said, "The kids are going to be so excited."
"I can't wait to see them."
"Lily has a lot to tell you."
"She always does."
"And Noah has been saving something for you."
"What?"
I smiled.
"You'll find out tomorrow."
He raised his eyebrows.
"Now you've made me curious."
"Good."
For a moment, the conversation felt like it used to. We teased each other. We talked about dinner. He asked whether the children had been behaving themselves, and I told him that depended on which child he was asking about.
Then his expression softened.
"I've missed you," he said.
The words landed somewhere deep inside me.
"I've missed you too."
"I know it's been hard."
"It has."
He looked down briefly, then back at me.
"Just one more night."
I nodded.
"One more night."
We said goodnight a few minutes later.
After the call ended, I sat quietly on the sofa.
I could hear the refrigerator humming in the kitchen and a car passing outside.
Everything looked ordinary.
But I felt as though I were standing at the edge of something wonderful.
I went to bed smiling.
I did not know that, at almost the same time, another woman might have been preparing for the same arrival.
I did not know that she might have been checking his flight details, arranging her transportation, or deciding what she would say when she saw him.
I did not know that she would be holding a sign with his name on it.
And I certainly did not know that when Jeremy finally walked through the airport doors, the first words he would say to her would not be a greeting.
They would be a question.
"What have you told her?"
Chapter Five: The Airport
I arrived nearly an hour early.
The airport was crowded, full of people moving in different directions with the urgent purpose of travelers who had places to be.
Announcements echoed overhead.
Suitcase wheels rattled over the floor.
A family near the coffee shop argued gently about where to meet their driver.
Someone was trying to fold a stroller while balancing a handbag on one shoulder.
I bought a coffee and checked the arrivals board.
Jeremy's flight was marked as on time.
I looked at my phone.
No new messages.
I checked my hair in the reflection of the dark screen, smoothed the front of my coat, and laughed at myself.
I was acting like a teenager waiting for a first date.
Then I remembered that the last time I had seen Jeremy in person, he had been standing in our doorway with a suitcase, promising to return in six months.
The excitement returned.
I moved closer to the arrivals barrier.
Other people were waiting there, too.
A woman held a bouquet of flowers wrapped in brown paper. A young man carried a balloon that read WELCOME HOME. Near the edge of the crowd, a little boy repeatedly asked his grandmother when his father would appear.
"How much longer?"
"Not long, sweetheart."
"You said that before."
The grandmother smiled patiently.
I smiled, too.
There was something comforting about the scene. People waiting for people they loved. Families preparing to become complete again, at least for a while.
I imagined Jeremy emerging from the doors.
I would spot him before he saw me.
I would call his name.
He would look up.
And then—
I noticed the sign.
It was plain white, with bold black letters.
JEREMY COLLINS.
I stopped.
At first, I assumed I had read it incorrectly. There were plenty of people in the world named Jeremy Collins. Perhaps it belonged to a businessman, a guest, or someone whose company had arranged a pickup.
I looked away.
Then I looked back.
The sign was still there.
A woman stood beneath it, holding the poster in both hands.
She had loosely gathered brown hair, a beige coat, and a canvas bag hanging from one shoulder. She looked to be in her thirties, perhaps a little younger than me.
Every few moments, she lowered the sign to check her phone.
Then she raised it again.
I watched her for several seconds.
Perhaps Jeremy's company had arranged a driver after all.
He had told me he would take a cab, but work might have changed the plan.
I decided to ask.
I walked toward her, holding my coffee in one hand.
"Excuse me," I said. "Are you picking up Jeremy for his company?"
She turned toward me.
"No."
Her answer was immediate.
"Oh. Sorry. I just saw the name."
She looked at the sign.
"We arranged this ourselves."
I smiled politely.
"Do you know him personally?"
She hesitated.
Then she looked at me in a way I couldn't quite interpret.
"Are you waiting for him, too?"
"Yes."
I almost laughed.
"I'm his wife."
The woman blinked.
For a fraction of a second, her face seemed to lose its expression.
"His wife?"
"Yes." I smiled, still thinking the situation was amusing. "It's a surprise. He thinks I'm at work."
She looked down at my left hand.
At my wedding ring.
Then she folded the edge of the poster against her coat.
"He said you weren't coming."
The words were quiet.
They were also unmistakably serious.
I felt the smile on my face begin to fade.
"I wasn't supposed to," I explained. "But my colleague covered my shift, so I thought I'd surprise him."
The woman said nothing.
She looked toward the arrivals doors.
Then she glanced at the sign again.
The airport continued moving around us.
A child complained about the wait. Someone laughed into a phone. A man passed with an enormous teddy bear tucked beneath his arm.
The world remained ordinary.
Only my understanding of it had changed.
"Sorry," I said slowly. "What's your name?"
The woman opened her mouth.
For a moment, I thought she would answer.
Instead, her eyes moved past my shoulder.
Something in her expression changed.
I turned.
Jeremy was walking through the arrivals doors.
He wore the dark jacket I had bought him the previous winter. His suitcase rolled behind him, and he was looking around with the distracted expression of someone trying to identify a familiar face in a crowd.
Then he saw her.
His whole face changed.
He smiled.
Not the polite smile he gave colleagues.
Not the tired expression he wore during our recent video calls.
It was the smile I remembered from the early years of our marriage, the one that used to make me feel as though I were the only person in a crowded room.
Except he was smiling at her.
Then his eyes shifted.
He saw me standing beside the woman.
He stopped so abruptly that the suitcase bumped against his leg.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then he walked toward us.
He looked at the woman first.
"What have you told her?"
I stared at him.
The question seemed to hang in the air between us.
Not Why are you here?
Not What are you doing?
Not even What is she doing here?
What have you told her?
I looked from him to the woman and back again.
"Jeremy?"
He turned toward me.
His face had become pale.
I had imagined this reunion a thousand times.
In none of those versions had I been standing beside a stranger holding a sign with my husband's name on it.
And in none of them had my husband looked afraid to see me.
Chapter Six: The Question Nobody Wanted to Answer
For several seconds, I couldn't find my voice.
Jeremy's hand remained on the handle of his suitcase.
The woman held the sign against her coat.
I stood between them, suddenly aware of how little I knew about the situation unfolding in front of me.
"Jeremy," I repeated. "Who is she?"
He swallowed.
"Claire."
He said the name as though it were a warning.
The woman closed her eyes briefly.
"Don't," she said.
He looked at her.
"I told you not to come here."
"And I told you I wasn't going to keep pretending this was normal."
My stomach tightened.
Pretending.
The word seemed to reach into the six months behind me and pull something loose.
"What does she mean?" I asked.
Jeremy turned toward me.
"Can we talk somewhere else?"
"No."
The answer came out more firmly than I expected.