The real cost came from leaving.
He missed the birth of his son.
He lost the marriage he assumed would always forgive him.
And he discovered that the woman he had left alone in a blizzard was no longer willing to build a comfortable life around his mother’s approval.
Fourteen days after he walked out, he came home expecting everything to be where he had left it.
The luggage was still expensive.
The souvenirs were still beautiful.
The photographs still showed perfect blue water.
But the life those things had once belonged to was over.
And for the first time in years, I did not need the Whitakers to understand why.
I already did.
