The bread knife slipped, leaving a thin red line across my thumb before I could even register the bite of the steel.
Tyler did not look up from the plastic container of turkey breast he was dividing into neat, measured portions. He reached for the mustard squeeze bottle, his movements deliberate and quiet in the early morning shadow of our Indianapolis kitchen.
“You should put some pressure on that,” he said, pointing the tip of the mustard bottle toward my hand.
I held my thumb under the cold tap, watching the pink water spiral down the drain. I cleared my throat, waiting for him to meet my eyes, but his attention remained fixed on his sandwich.
“Are you scheduled for the regional run to O’Hare tomorrow?” I asked.
“Negative, that is an off-schedule ferry flight,” Tyler said, using the flat, formal aviation terminology that always crept into his speech when he was tired.
He rubbed the back of his neck, his palm making a dry, scratching sound against his starched white collar. It was a habit he only fell into when he was hiding a delay or a shift in his roster.
I twisted my gold wedding band around my finger, the metal cool against my damp skin. “You said you would be home by Friday afternoon.”
“The carrier required a repositioning crew,” Tyler said, keeping his eyes on his lunchbox. “The scheduling department made the determination at midnight.”
