Chapter 13 - The Breakdown at Narita
Tori buried her face in her hands, her shoulders heaving with ragged sobs that sounded more like panic than genuine remorse.
"We landed at Narita after a fourteen-hour flight," Tori stammered, peering up at me through red-rimmed eyes. "We turned our phones on while we were waiting at customs. That’s when the alerts hit. Caleb got a barrage of voice messages from Patrice, the emergency bills from the nanny service, and an email from a family lawyer Patrice had put on retainer."
"Good for Patrice," Linda muttered under her breath from the corner of the room.
Tori shot Linda a venomous look, but the fire quickly died under Linda's unflinching glare. She looked back at me, desperate. "Caleb started screaming at me right there in the customs queue. He said I lied to him. He thought you had agreed to watch the kids months ago. He thought we had an arrangement!"
"You lied to your own husband?" I asked, though I wasn't surprised in the least.
"I told him you had agreed to it!" Tori wailed, her hands clutching her temples. "Because you always say yes! You're their grandmother! What kind of grandmother leaves the country when her grandbabies need her?!"
"A grandmother who had her own plane ticket," I answered coldly. "A grandmother who is a human being with a life, not your live-in servant. Continue, Tori. What happened at the airport?"
"He told me I was sick," she said, her voice dropping into a shaky whisper. "He said I was selfish and reckless, and that leaving the kids with a note and a lockbox on an empty porch was criminal neglect. He said Patrice told him the county sheriff was an hour away from taking custody of the kids before she stepped in. Caleb looked at me like he hated me, Myrna. I’ve never seen him look at me like that."
"And then?" I pressed.
"He went to the United counter," she sniffed, digging her nails into the velvet upholstery. "He used our joint emergency card to book a flight straight back to Chicago. He told me he was going home to fix the mess I made and that he was filing for temporary custody the second his plane touched down."
"And why didn't you get on that flight with him?" Linda asked, narrowing her eyes. "Why are you here in Lisbon?"
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Tori swallowed hard, a sudden flicker of guilt dodging across her puffy eyes. "He wouldn't let me," she whispered. "He told me if I got on that plane, he’d have the police meet me at the gate in Chicago. He told me to go figure out who I was, because the woman he married didn't exist anymore."
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