Chapter One
Pulling my penguinsleep mask off and tugging my ear buds out, I stretched hard and blinked harder.Deep inside my pocket, my phone buzzed and my pulse picked up.
A text from my son.Home safe.Leftover pizza for lunch.Don’t tell Ally but I’m eating the last of the brownies.
I smiled with relief and thumbed a reply.Eat them all.She’ll survive.Or make more.
No doubt my daughter, an avid baker and in the top of her culinary arts program, would make another batch.She loved changing up some part of it to give it her personality of the day; whether that was more sweetness or a hint of spice.
My kids were awesome, and I was grateful they got along so well and managed to help me out from time to time.Like today when my twenty-three-year-old son drove me two hours to the Edmonton airport.Since he was my ride, he needed to drop me off early so he’d be home in time for work, or at least that’s what he claimed.I was going to be gone for a few days after all.Although he had a good head on his shoulders, inside his soul beat the rhythm of a kid dying to eat all the junk food, refuse to face adulthood, and be an irresponsible slob without mom reminding him of his chores.Deep down, I hoped he enjoyed the break.We all needed that from time to time.
When I was his age, I certainly didn’t have that.Responsibilities were overwhelmingly handed out to me when I was younger than him, and I discovered I was pregnant a few weeks after dating a guy I thought was my forever.Turned out, he was my only-until-the-second-was-born type, and parenthood became too much for him to handle.
So I did it alone, for a few years.
Until I met Tina at a school fundraiser, and we hit it off.
She became such a huge part of my life after that evening.The kids affectionately call her Auntie Tina.When she got married a few years back, my daughter was a junior bridesmaid, and I was the maid of honour, and we saw each other weekly, if not daily.Then her husband got a job offer he couldn’t refuse and shuffled them to Vancouver Island.
So here I was at the airport, jumping out of a quick slumber, ready to surprise her and fly to her side as he’d dumped her—on their vacation, no less—and she needed me.Needed my shoulder to cry on.
Rising, I walked to the middle of the busy concourse where announcements barely interrupted the flow of movement.I laughed at all the seriousness, knowing in a few hours I’d be day drunk with Tina while watching chick flicks and dreaming of either sweet revenge or a dreamy happy ever after.Probably the first one.
Looking left and right, I couldn’t remember which gate I was boarding at.Gate 56 or Gate 58?
As people scurried by, phones in hand with indecipherable conversations, I spotted the departures board and beelined in that direction.I scanned the board for my direct flight—and stopped cold.
Next to my flight number: CANCELLED.Not delayed.Not boarding soon.Absolutely dead in the water cancelled.
Shouldn’t I have received some sort of notification for that?Nothing was mentioned when I scanned my boarding pass at security a couple of hours ago, and there were no alerts sent to my phone.I quickly thumbed through emails, scouring for any hint that I was a sitting duck.
Nothing.
Now what?
Time passed in slow motion as I stood there, recalculating like I was triaging in the ER.Prioritizing what needed to be handled first, and that was to find out if there was a reason for the cancellation and if they had a back up plan in place, like another flight they were transferring people to.
There was no need to alert Josh just yet, nor Ally, not that she could drive and pick me up if that were the case.She had zero desire to obtain a driver’s license.And Tina?Well, that was the best kept surprise I’d ever made and I wasn’t ready to admit that my plans were all for naught.
She needed the Breakup Survival Kit currently in my tote bag: pajamas, high-end chocolate truffles, a face mask, a pettyHis Losst-shirt I’d found on marketplace, and—okay—maybe two bottles of wine.
I walked up to a suspiciously empty gate and eyed around for an airline employee.Anyone in uniform.
A Canadian soldier, a member of the Canadian Armed Forces in desert fatigues, strode past.
I glanced to the heavens and chuckled as that wasn’t quite what I had in mind.
Finally, I spotted a woman in a navy blazer and name badge standing near a counter.A gate agent.“Excuse me.My flight’s been cancelled.How do I get a new seat on the next flight?”
She looked at me like I’d asked for a ride to the moon.“Our crews walked off thirty minutes ago.Flights are suspended across the board.We’re not able to rebook at the gates during the strike.You’ll need to head back to the main terminal—ticketing can help you there.”
“The main terminal?You mean on the other side of security?”
“Precisely.Your airline can help you there.”
My gaze fell to her name tag blazoned with her airline’s name.“But you work for them.”
“I don’t have the ability to rebook from here with the strike affecting flights.You’ll need to rebook at the main terminal.”
