Chapter 15 - A Call Across Nine Time Zones
Down in the sun-drenched plaza, the afternoon air smelled of roasted chestnuts and sea salt. Linda ordered two double espressos and a plate of warm *pastéis de nata*, but neither of us touched the pastries.
My phone vibrated on the marble table. The caller ID flashed: *Caleb*.
I looked at Linda. She gave me a firm nod. "Take it outside the room. Hear what he has to say."
I swiped the green icon and held the phone to my ear. "Caleb."
There was a heavy, exhausted sigh on the other end, followed by the distant sound of children’s laughter—or rather, children’s bickering.
"Mom," Caleb said. His voice was ragged, drained, sounding older than his thirty-four years. "Are you okay? Did she find you?"
"She is in my hotel room right now," I said plainly. "Claiming you stranded her at Narita with no money and no way home."
A harsh, bitter laugh came through the speaker. "She told you that? Of course she did."
"What actually happened, Caleb?"
"Mom, I didn't strand her," Caleb said, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. "When we landed and Patrice’s texts came through, I lost it. I couldn't believe what she had done to you—and to the kids. I booked two economy tickets back to Chicago immediately. Two tickets, Mom. One for me, one for her. We were supposed to board the return flight together."
I frowned, looking across the plaza at the terracotta roofs. "Then why is she in Portugal?"
"Because while I was in the restroom at Narita, she went to the ticket desk and changed her routing," Caleb explained, his voice thick with misery. "She refused to come home. She told me she wasn't going to spend twenty hours on a plane just to come back to a house full of screaming kids and Patrice screaming at her. She said she was going to Lisbon to make you come home with her, so you could take over the kids while we sorted out our marriage."
I closed my eyes, taking a deep, slow breath. The sheer, breathtaking entitlement of that woman was beyond anything I had imagined.
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"She took the emergency credit card and maxed it out on an upgrade to Frankfurt," Caleb continued. "That's why I froze the account. I had to, Mom! She was going to drain our savings to run away from her own family!"
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