AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It looked like a contemporary, abstract art piece. April laughed as she thought about how, the night before, she thought this would help her morning self. It took some time, but she was able to clean it up.
As she cleaned up the clothes, she found some fresh ones for herself. Something comfortable for her plane ride later this morning. April’s face was puffy from a mix of the alcohol and tears last night. It took longer than usual to go through her skin care routine and put on the minimal amount of makeup she needed to feel good in public.
Then she packed up what she would actually need for a trip to the house on the island. Her piles of clothes slowly became folded and made their way to the suitcase. She even got her toiletries in order, using her fifteen different organizers. It was a tight fit, even for the biggest of her suitcases.
She tried pulling it shut, reorganizing to hopefully make more room, but the suitcase still wouldn’t close. Eventually, she succumbed to lying across the top of the suitcase, uncomfortably angled, to try and get the best leverage to zip it all shut. “Oh, come on!” she yelled aloud. “Just shut!”
“April?” a voice said from her bedroom door. Her head snapped up to find Carl staring at her, frozen in the awkward position atop her suitcase. She slid off the suitcase and onto the floor to try and make things look more natural.
“Yes?” she asked as though nothing was happening.
Carl looked between the suitcase and his wife sitting on the floor with her legs awkwardly crossed and her arms still stuck at uncomfortable angles. “Uh… What’s going on here?”
“What does it look like? I’m trying to get this to close,” April replied to her husband.
He finally looked away, trying to ignore whatever was going on with her. “I thought you would be at work. I was just coming to grab a few things I missed yesterday.”
April stood and dusted herself off. “Oh yeah… I quit my job.” She said it as if she didn’t care. Like it was something she’d just forgotten to tell him, like running into someone at the store - not quitting her job of over seventeen years.
Carl turned to her with widened eyes. “What?”
“I quit my job,” she reiterated with a smile. Her husband was less amused by the news. He gaped and stared until he processed what she said.
“ April, you can’t just quit your job.”
She scoffed and crossed her arms in front of her. “Yes, I can. I did. They already know.”
“And they were fine with it?”
April thought back to the phone call and how angry Maxwell had been. They didn’t exactly take to the idea of her leaving, but they didn’t really have a choice either. Just like how Carl didn’t have a say in her life decisions from here on out. “No, but I’m not sure they can say no. You quit a job and you move on.”
“Quit a job? This isn’t just a job for you. This is your career. You’ve worked your whole life for this career.” April listened to the speech while taking out articles of clothing to ensure her suitcase could zip up. “You should really think about what’s best for you.”
She couldn’t take it anymore. She was trying her best to keep the conversation civil, but at this point, Carl needed a reality check. “What’s best for me? You lost the ability to say what’s best for me when you decided we’d be getting divorced. That means you don’t get a say in my life anymore.”
Clutching his chest in shock, Carl couldn’t do anything but stand there, staring. He didn’t even help her with the bag she’d been struggling with on the floor. “But, but, you still can’t quit. That’s your job. You need a job.”
“I’m done letting you tell me what to do. I’ve quit my job and that’s my decision.” April stood up and rolled her bag out of the room.
Feeling good about herself, she walked straight out the front door and into her car. When she sat there with her suitcase in the back, it became very real. The anger she felt as Carl told her what she could and couldn’t do burned bright in her chest. It felt like a weight on her shoulders. And as she started up the car, it became lighter.
When she pulled out of the driveway, it was lighter still. And when she was down the road, she almost forgot that there was ever a weight there to begin with.
April was determined to get to the airport. She didn’t know what was waiting for her at the cabin, but she knew she was going to find out. She just hoped she wouldn’t come to regret it.
CHAPTER FIVE
April’s short glass of rosé almost spilled as the plane’s turbulence hit a little bit harder than she anticipated. It felt like everyone looked over at her as she struggled to maneuver her glass before the red liquid stained the dark carpets lining the walkway.
For a moment, she wondered how her daughter made these flights so easily as she took off to Appalachian State. April was only heading a few hours away from Boone and the flight felt like torture.
All the waiting, the turbulence, the overthinking - it felt like an eternity before the captain made the announcement that they were landing soon.
She looked out the window through the clouds as they descended and saw glimpses of the ocean she once knew so well. The beauty of the beach town, Sandcrest, overwhelmed her at times.
When April was young, the island brought her magic. It was where she learned to be free. In her mind, she could still see the cobblestone path by her house that led to rickety stairs bringing them down to the beach. There was no greater sight than the beach on a summer day, the shine of the water as the sun hit it just right.
The decision to visit was made purely out of impulse, a longing to be back at this place again. But April worried about leaving everything she knew behind for even a short while. Old memories mixed with ones from just a few years ago.
