3. Tessa
TESSA
The birthday candles sat waiting in their box on the counter.
I checked my phone again. Nothing. The chicken parmesan I'd spent the afternoon making was going to dry out if we waited much longer, and the garlic bread was already cooling on the stove.
Sophie's favorite meal, the one she asked for every year without fail, and her father wasn't here to see her face when I brought it out.
I'd started cooking at three. Pounded the chicken myself, breaded it the way Sophie liked with extra parmesan in the coating, let it brown in the skillet until the edges were crispy and golden.
Made the sauce from scratch because the jarred stuff was never good enough, not for her birthday.
I'd even picked up fresh basil from the market on my way home from the clinic, the kind that cost twice as much as the regular stuff but smelled like summer.
All of it for a dinner her father wasn't here to eat.
Sophie sat at the dining table with her hands folded in her lap like she was trying to be patient.
She'd changed into the new dress I'd bought her last week, navy blue with little white flowers, and she'd asked me to braid her hair after school.
She looked older than ten. Older than she should have to be.
Owen had given up on waiting quietly and was running his toy cars along the edge of the table, making engine noises under his breath. The hardwood floors creaked as I walked back from the kitchen for the third time in ten minutes, wiping my hands on a dish towel I didn't need to be holding.
My chest felt tight. I kept telling myself Callum would walk through the door any second, that he was just running late, that he wouldn't miss this. But the clock on the wall said six fifty-three and the dinner was supposed to start at six.
"Mom?" Sophie's voice was small. "When can we start?"
I forced a smile I didn't feel. "Soon, sweetheart."
"But I'm hungry." Owen didn't look up from his cars.
"I know." I folded the towel into a tight square, then unfolded it. My hands needed something to do. "We're just waiting a little longer."
Sophie twisted in her chair to look at the hallway, like her father might appear if she stared hard enough. Her new book about horses sat beside her plate, the one I'd wrapped this morning while she was still asleep. She hadn't opened it yet. She was waiting for him.
I wanted to tell her to stop. To open the present now, to start eating, to stop expecting him to show up. But I couldn't make myself say it.
"Where's Dad?" she asked.
The question landed in my chest like a stone. I knew it was coming. I'd been bracing for it since I set the table, since I'd lit the oven, since I'd woken up this morning and remembered what day it was. But knowing didn't make it easier to answer.
"He's at work, honey."
"Still?" Her face fell, and God, I hated seeing that look on her. "He said he'd be here."
He did say that. Three days ago, when I reminded him about the dinner, he'd looked up from his tablet long enough to nod and say he'd be home by six. I'd asked him twice after that, just to make sure he remembered. He'd said yes both times, his tone patient like I was being ridiculous for checking.
It was almost seven now.
Owen stopped his cars mid-crash. "Is he coming?"
"I'm going to call him," I said.
I grabbed my phone from the counter and walked into the hallway, my thumb already finding Callum's name in my contacts. My pulse kicked up the way it always did when I had to call him at work, like I was doing something wrong by interrupting. Like I was the one who should apologize.
The call rang twice before he picked up.
"Tessa." His voice had that distant quality it always did when he was working, like I was interrupting something more important. "What is it?"
What is it. Not hello. Not even a pause to guess why I might be calling on a Thursday evening when he knew exactly what today was.
"Where are you?" I kept my voice low so the kids wouldn't hear the edge in it.
"Bellhaven General." Papers rustled on his end of the line. "I'm with a patient."
My stomach dropped. "Callum, it's Sophie's birthday."
"I know." He said it like I was stating the obvious, like he hadn't forgotten at all. "A case came in an hour ago. Traumatic aortic dissection, type A. The patient's twenty-six years old, Tessa. If I don't operate tonight, he won't make it to morning."
The medical details were supposed to make me understand.
They always were. And I did understand—of course I did.
I was a nurse. I knew what a type A dissection meant, knew the mortality rate, knew that every minute counted when the aorta was tearing itself apart.
I knew that Callum's hands were probably the only ones in the city that could save someone that close to the edge.
But Sophie was ten years old today, and she was sitting at the table in her new dress waiting for her father to come home.
"Ingrid's here with me," Callum added, almost as an afterthought. "We're prepping for the OR now."
Ingrid.
Of course Ingrid was there. She was always there, standing across the operating table from him, handing him instruments, watching him work with that look on her face like she was the only person in the room who really understood him.
I'd told myself for two weeks that it didn't matter, that the comment she'd made in my own home was just Ingrid being Ingrid, that Callum's refusal to defend me didn't mean what I thought it meant.
But hearing her name now, tonight, made something twist in my stomach that I didn't want to name.
"The work needed me," Callum said, and I could hear him moving, his footsteps echoing in what was probably the surgical corridor. "You understand that."
I closed my eyes. He wasn't asking. He was telling me.
"Sophie's been waiting for you," I said quietly. "She's been sitting at the table for almost an hour asking when you're coming home."
There was a pause. Not long enough to mean he was reconsidering. Just long enough to mean he'd heard me and was deciding how to respond.
"I'll be home when I can," he said finally. "Tell her I'm sorry. Tell her I'll make it up to her this weekend."
This weekend. Like her birthday could be rescheduled.
Like it didn't matter that she'd been excited about tonight for weeks, that she'd told me this morning she couldn't wait for Dad to see the new book I'd bought her, that she'd asked if we could play the board game he'd promised to teach her after dinner.
"Callum—"
"I have to go, Tessa. I'll call you when I'm out of surgery."
The line went dead before I could say anything else.
I stood in the hallway for a long moment, staring at my phone like it might ring again, like he might call back and say he'd found someone else to take the case, that he was on his way home.
But the screen stayed dark, and the only sound was Owen's muffled car noises drifting in from the dining room.
God, what was I even doing?
I'd spent eleven years telling myself this was normal.
That being married to the best surgeon in the world meant coming second.
That the work had to come first because the work saved lives, and what was a birthday dinner compared to that?
I'd told myself I understood, that I was fine with it, that I didn't mind being the one who explained to the kids why their father wasn't there.
But standing in the hallway with the phone dead in my hand and Sophie waiting at the table, I didn't feel fine.
I felt like an idiot.
I shoved the phone into my pocket and walked back to the dining room. Sophie looked up the second I appeared, her eyes bright with hope that made my throat go tight. Owen had abandoned his cars and was slumped in his chair, his chin propped on one hand.
"Is he coming?" Sophie asked.
I pulled out the chair across from her and sat down, trying to find the words that wouldn't make this worse. "Dad had an emergency at the hospital, sweetheart. A patient who's very sick and needs surgery tonight."
"But it's my birthday."
Her voice was so small it cracked something open in my chest.
"I know." I reached across the table and took her hand. Her fingers were small and warm in mine, and I hated that I was the one sitting here trying to explain why her father had chosen work over her again. "He's really sorry. He said he'll make it up to you this weekend."
Sophie pulled her hand back and looked down at the unopened present beside her plate. She didn't cry. She just nodded, her mouth pressed into a thin line that reminded me so much of Callum it hurt.
"Can we eat now?" Owen asked.
I wanted to say no. I wanted to tell them we'd wait, that their father would be home any minute, that this dinner mattered enough for him to find a way.
But the chicken was getting cold and Sophie looked like she was trying very hard not to be upset, and sitting here staring at three empty plates wasn't going to fix any of it.
"Yeah," I said. "Let's eat."
I brought out the food and served it onto their plates, making sure Sophie got the crispy edge piece she liked and that Owen's didn't have too much sauce. The meal I'd spent hours making. The dinner I'd planned for weeks.
They ate quietly, without the chatter that usually filled the table. Sophie picked at her chicken, cutting it into smaller and smaller pieces but barely eating any of it. Owen finished in about four minutes flat and asked if he could be excused to go play.
I said yes.
After he left, it was just me and Sophie in the dining room, the sound of her fork scraping against her plate the only noise between us. I pushed my own food around, my appetite gone. The chair at the head of the table sat empty, the plate I'd set for Callum still waiting.
She still hadn't opened her present. I thought about telling her to go ahead, that she didn't have to wait for her father, but the words felt wrong in my mouth. Like I'd be admitting something I wasn't ready to admit yet.
"Mom?" Sophie's voice was quiet.
"Yeah, honey?"
"Does Dad even remember it's my birthday?"
The question hit me harder than it should have. I wanted to lie, to tell her of course he remembered, that he'd been talking about it all week. But she was ten now, not a baby. She deserved better than a lie.
"He remembered," I said carefully. "He just couldn't get away."
Sophie looked at me for a long moment, and I wondered what she saw. If she could tell I didn't believe what I was saying. If she could see the doubt written all over my face.
She didn't ask anything else. She just went back to her dinner, and I sat there feeling like the worst kind of failure.
After she finished—or gave up, really, since half her chicken was still on her plate—I cleared the table and brought out the cake I'd made that morning.
Chocolate with vanilla frosting, Sophie's favorite.
I'd spent an hour on it last night after the kids went to bed, making sure the layers were even and the frosting was smooth.
I stuck the candles in and lit them, all ten of them plus one to grow on.
Sophie blew them out while I sang happy birthday by myself in a voice that sounded too loud for the room. She made a wish with her eyes squeezed shut, and I wondered what she was wishing for. If she was wishing her father was here.
Owen came back downstairs for cake and ate his slice standing up at the counter, frosting smeared on his chin, then disappeared again to play with his blocks. Sophie took a few bites of hers and pushed the rest around on her plate.
"Can I open my present now?" she asked quietly.
"Of course, sweetheart."
She unwrapped it carefully, folding the paper instead of tearing it, and her face lit up when she saw the book. It was the new one in the series she loved, the one about the girl who trained wild horses. I'd preordered it two months ago to make sure it arrived in time.
"Thanks, Mom." She hugged the book to her chest. "Can I go read it?"
"Yeah. Happy birthday, Sophie."
She kissed my cheek and headed upstairs, the book already open in her hands.
I was alone in the kitchen, washing dishes that didn't need to be washed yet, when I caught sight of my left hand under the running water. The thin gold band on my finger glinted under the overhead light, the inside worn smooth with tiny scratches from eleven years of wear.
I never took the ring off. Not when I was scrubbing in at the hospital, not when I was washing my hands at the clinic, not when I was standing at this sink doing dishes while my husband saved someone else's life and missed his daughter's birthday.
I turned off the water and dried my hands, staring at the ring like it might tell me something I didn't already know.
Callum didn't know the marriage was in trouble. He probably thought tonight was fine, that I understood, that Sophie would get over it. He'd come home in a few hours and tell me about the surgery, about how he'd saved the patient's life, and he'd expect me to be proud of him.
And I would be. I always was.
But I didn't take the ring off.