Page 31 of Perdition

After spending the morning with Cheri, and sharing a box of freshly baked chocolate croissants and a large mocha latte with Sorsha, who was adamant that her mom and dad have a conversation, Em decided that she was going to catch up on all the streaming shows she’d missed while letting life get busy.

Cheri had already headed out for work at her garage, and Sorsha had headed back to campus for her afternoon classes, so Em ordered Subway via Grubhub, settled on Cheri’s supremelycomfortable sectional, and started her binging with “Virgin River” on Netflix. She needed feel good to help combat at the feel shitty she’d been dealing with over the last several months…that culminated in her tossing her husband’s belongings into the back of his prized truck.

Along with her property kutte.

She had to admit, she hadn’t been thinking clearly when she’d grabbed that bit of warm, warn leather and threw it into the back of the truck with Frost’s other material things. And she hadn’t really been thinking when she’d asked Cheri for the keys to her storage shed, either.

But that was a thought for another time.

As the credits for season three flashed on the screen, Em felt listless, restless, like she should be doing something, anything, other than just lazing away her time.

As a mom, wife, and business owner, she hadn’t had much time to just do nothing in over years, and taking a day off had become as impossible as pulling a thorn from a raging lion’s paw. So now that she’d forced herself to take a day, she couldn’t stop the feeling that told her she was missing something, that things could fall apart when she wasn’t there, when she wasn’t looking.

Like how they’d fallen apart in her marriage…when she’d been so busy building her dream that she missed the signs that her husband, her one and only, had grown tired of her. That her soulmate had grown weary of being stuck to a woman he no longer found attractive. That the man who owned her, body and soul, no longer found those things worthy of his time and attention.

Cursing, the tossed down the Roku remote and slid off the couch, dodging the long coffee table, and a stack ofCollectable AutomobileandHemmings Motor Newsmagazines Cheri had left on the floor. The woman was a drill sergeant in her garage,making sure everything was right and tight, but her house was organized chaos. It all looked like randomness just thrown around, but move one thing from where she’d left it, and she knew—like she had a weird sixth sense about her precious junk.

Slugging her way to the bathroom, Em did her business and went to wash her hands in the sink.

The sight of her own face in the vanity mirror made her freeze.

Her blonde hair was limp and lackluster, her face was wide and creased with wrinkles at the sides of her eyes and mouth, her chin had a bit of a wobble, and her eyes…her eyes were dull.

“This…this is what he sees when he looks at me,” she rasped, “this tired, worn-out old woman.” Tears began filling her eyes. “N-no wonder he feels s-stuck.”

The tears slid down her cheeks, but she couldn’t make herself move to wipe them away. She was mesmerized by her own face, cast in a mask of misery.

When had she become this old, ugly, worn-out creature? One that looked like life had been sucked right out of it, right along with her energy and passion?

Where had her youth, her vitality gone, leaving behind old shoe leather and despair?

Her mouth, once one of her favorite features, and something Mads had always loved about her, weren’t the plump, rosy lips from their first kiss. Now, they looked thin, more prone to grimace than grin—and when was the last time Madsen had kissed her? When was the last time he’d demanded, “Give me your mouth, woman?” and then devoured her like he was dying without her taste?

Silently, she grabbed a face towel from the basket on the vanity, and wiped at the tears until her face was red from the scrubbing.

“Stop it, Emily!” she chastised her reflection. “This isn’t you. You’ve never been one to cry over looks or what people think about your looks.”

Then again, those people had never been Mads.

Madsen Flowers from decades ago had never failed to make her feel beautiful, adored, desired. He was her first, and she was his, and they’d known and memorized each other’s bodies with diligent, dedicated study. There wasn’t a mole or vein on his body that she hadn’t memorized with her eyes, her mouth, her hands….

And, once upon a time, she’d say Mads thought the same.

Now…had every memory of her body—grown plump, soft, and jiggly with age—been replaced by the young, tight, firm body of another woman?

Hissing at that thought, she mentally slapped herself.

“No,” she spoke into the bathroom mirror, “Mads isn’t a cheater. He loves me, loves his family…he wouldn’t do that to us.” She let out a shaky breath. “He wouldn’t do that to me.”

She sounded convinced, confident even…so why did that feeling of dread and coming Chaos creep in once more?

Her reflection didn’t have the answer, either.

“Thanks,” Frost called over his shoulder as he pushed his way out the glass door of Flower’s Blooms and into the stifling afternoon sun. “Shit.”

He could tell from the clipped tone and glare from Tina, the assistant florist, that she knew something was up.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Em had taken a sick day.