Chapter 5: The Earlier Flight
Aaron arrived at half past one.
I heard his key in the lock and met him in the hallway.
He looked tired — the kind of tired that isn't about sleep.
He dropped his bag by the stairs and hugged me, and I held on a moment longer than usual.
"Happy birthday, Mum," he said into my shoulder.
"I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry I wasn't here."
"You didn't know."
He pulled back and looked at me.
His jaw was set in a way I recognized — he had his father's face when something was wrong and he was trying to hold it together.
"Where is she?"
"I don't know.
She left this morning."
He nodded slowly.
Looked at the hallway — the bare walls where the decorations had been, the faint marks on the paint where the tape had pulled.
"Tell me what happened," he said.
"All of it.
Not the version where you protect her feelings."
So I told him.
I told him about the balloons and the fork.
The cake in the trash.
The food carried out of the kitchen.
The phone calls I made to my friends, my voice shaking by the fifth one.
The laughter from downstairs.
Janice's voice saying *I made everything myself.*
Aaron sat at the kitchen table and didn't speak.
His hands were flat on the surface.
He didn't move them.
"She told me you'd agreed to move it," he said when I finished.
"I know."
"She said you'd suggested it.
That you thought it was a good idea because the weather next weekend was supposed to be nicer."
I looked at him.
"Aaron."
"I know." He closed his eyes briefly.
"I know."
We sat quietly for a moment.
"There's more," I said.
I told him about the phone.
About the expression on Janice's face when she read whatever was on the screen.
About how she'd gone pale before her boss had even finished speaking, and then paler still after.
"Her boss's wife is my friend," I said.
"Margaret.
We've known each other fifteen years.
I didn't call her.
I didn't ask her to do anything.
But she must have found out somehow and called her husband herself."
Aaron was quiet.
"What was the message?" he asked.
"The one on Janice's phone."
"I don't know.
She wouldn't let me see."
He pulled out his own phone.
Looked at it.
Put it face-down on the table.
"She texted me this morning," he said.
"After she left.
She said you'd manipulated the situation.
That you'd set her up to look bad in front of her colleagues.
That you'd called her boss deliberately."
"I didn't."
"I know that." He said it without hesitation, and I felt something loosen in my chest that I hadn't realized was tight.
"I know you, Mum.
And I know her."
He stood up and walked to the window.
"There's something I haven't told you," he said.
"About the promotion."
I waited.
"I spoke to a colleague of mine last week.
Someone who works in Janice's building, different department.
We had lunch." He turned from the window.
"He mentioned, in passing, that there had been some questions raised internally.
About credit.
About who had actually led the project Janice has been presenting as hers."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"He didn't say much.
He probably said more than he should have.
But he mentioned a name." Aaron looked at me.
"A junior colleague of Janice's.
Young woman, two years in.
Apparently she'd been doing most of the work on the account."
"Does Janice know she's been found out?"
"I think," Aaron said slowly, "that's what was on her phone."
May you like
The front door opened.
Janice was home.
