Chapter 4 - The Approach
The flight was agonizingly short—just under two hours from wheels-up to descent.
Throughout the journey, neither of us touched our complimentary drinks. I spent the time mentally stripping away every illusion I had built around our marriage, replacing nostalgia with cold, strategic calculation. I didn't panic. I didn't draft angry text messages. I didn't storm the cockpit door—though the locked reinforced barrier made that impossible anyway.
Instead, I watched the digital flight map on the screen before us, tracking our descent as we crossed over Indiana and began cutting down toward the sprawling, glittering grid of Chicago O'Hare International Airport.
The captain’s voice crackled over the speakers once more about twenty minutes before landing.
“Folks, we’re beginning our final descent into Chicago. Weather is clear, temperature is fifty-two degrees. On behalf of First Officer Vance and myself, thanks for flying with us today. And... Chloe, I’ll see you at baggage claim.”
A few scattered chuckles rippled through the cabin.
Up in row twenty-six, my skin crawled with a toxic mixture of disgust and cold fury. He was doubling down. Even now, descending with three hundred unsuspecting souls on board a commercial airliner, he was using federal aviation equipment to flirt with his mistress.
“He’s doing it again,” Mason whispered angrily, his small fists clenched tightly in his lap.
“Let him,” I said, my voice dropping into a register so chillingly calm that even I barely recognized it. “People who get too comfortable make mistakes, Mason. And your dad just made a very, very big one.”
The landing gear thumped downward, locking into place with a heavy, mechanical shudder that rattled the cabin. The flaps extended, creating a low, roaring drag as the aircraft slowed its momentum and lined up with the brightly lit concrete ribbons of the runway.
Wheels touched down with a sharp squeal of rubber against asphalt, followed immediately by the deafening roar of the thrust reversers kicking in, shoving us forward against our seatbelts as Tyler expertly brought the massive metal bird to a smooth, textbook stop.
The standard arrival chime played.
Passengers immediately began unbuckling their seatbelts, rustling overhead bins, and jostling into the aisle, eager to escape the stale cabin air.
May you like
“Stay close to me, Mason,” I instructed, standing up and sliding our single carry-on bag out from beneath the seat ahead. “We’re going to walk right off this plane, and we’re going to find out exactly who Chloe is.”
---
