One By One by Freida McFadden(2)

It’s not so much. My friend Lindsay literally has an entire room just for her clothing. But she’s not married. So she gets to do whatever she wants without another person criticizing her every move.

I sift through the drawer, pushing through the range of gray and black T-shirts. Noah has never been a fan of bright colors. He tends to stick with the grayscale. One time he bought a green shirt. That was his midlife crisis.

After only a few seconds, I see the flash of maroon shoved into one corner of the drawer. I pull out the shirt and see the word UChicago etched across the front in faded lettering. Noah has had this T-shirt as long as I’ve known him. It’s his favorite shirt.

For a moment, I’m seized with the urge to stuff this shirt into the bottom of the garbage bin without telling him. He’ll go crazy looking for it. And really, this shirt needs to be retired. There’s a hole forming at the collar and the hem is all frayed.

Then again, I’ve got enough secrets from my husband right now. And I don’t want to miss out on the pure satisfaction of informing him that the shirt was in the drawer all along.

“Mommy?”

My seven-year-old daughter, Emma, is standing at the doorway to our bedroom, watching me contemplate what to do with her father’s favorite T-shirt. Even though we’ve already had breakfast, she’s still wearing her Frozen pajamas, which are royal blue with little snowflakes all over them. I guiltily shove the T-shirt back into the drawer and turn to smile at Emma. She doesn’t smile back.

While her big brother is excited about the idea of staying with Aunt Penny for a week, Emma is decidedly freaked out. For the last week, Emma has crawled into our queen-sized bed every single night to sleep. Fortunately, Noah and I sleep with a gap the size of the Atlantic Ocean between us.

“What’s wrong, honey?” I ask.

Emma’s lower lip trembles. She runs over to me and wraps her skinny arms around my hips. “Don’t go, Mommy. Please.”

“Emma…”

I attempt to pry her off me, but she’s stuck like glue. It’s sweet. As much as I dislike my husband, I love my children. I’ve always loved children. It’s part of the reason I became a teacher. Nothing makes me happier than seeing the smiles light up those little faces.

I reach down and wipe Emma’s damp light brown curls from her face. Her hair looks like mine, but it’s still baby soft. I lean in and bury my face in it—it smells like her watermelon shampoo. “It’s just a week, sweetheart,” I say.

She looks up at me with her little tear-streaked cheeks. “But what if something happens to you?”

I don’t know how my seven-year-old daughter got so neurotic. She worries about everything, including things no child has any business worrying about. Like when there was talk of a teacher strike last year, she was worried I wouldn’t have a job and we wouldn’t be able to afford food. What seven-year-old worries about that?

“Why are you so worried, Emma?”

She chews on her little pink lip. “Well, you’re going to be in the woods.”

I don’t blame her for worrying if that’s what she thinks. Neither of her parents is what you would call “the outdoorsy type” by any stretch of the imagination. “Don’t worry,” I say. “We’re staying in a nice hotel. It will be really safe.”

Her light brown eyebrows bunch together. “But I had a dream that…”

“That what?”

Emma scrunches up her face. “That a monster in the forest ate you up!”

It’s laughable, of course. We’ll be sticking to the hotel and its amenities most of the week, and if we do venture out, we will keep to circumscribed locations like hiking trails for lame-o city slicker tourists. And even if we weren’t, I’m sure whatever Emma is imagining is some sort of blue Cookie Monster-like creature appearing out of the wilderness and stuffing us all into his mouth in one fell swoop.

Yet Emma does sometimes have a strange intuition about things. One night she came into our bedroom at two in the morning, crying about a dream that Grandpa Joe had died. Two days later, my seemingly healthy father succumbed to a massive heart attack. Noah chalked it all up to coincidence, but I never forgot.

As much as I hate to admit it, Emma’s premonition is making me uneasy. Maybe this trip is a mistake.

I look down at the two sets of luggage on our bed. Noah’s with the clothes stuffed haphazardly inside, and mine with everything folded neatly. What if I told him I didn’t want to go? Would he freak out? Or would he be relieved that he doesn’t have to spend the next week with someone he hates?

But then I hear Noah’s laughter coming from outside the door. Apparently, he heard the whole exchange. “Emma!” He stands in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest. “You’re not really worried about that, are you?”

Emma’s lower lip trembles.

“You know there’s no such thing as monsters!” He cocks his head to the side. “Well, except for… tickle monsters!”

Despite her worries, Emma’s brown eyes widen excitedly. After a solid minute of tickling, she appears to have forgotten all about her scary dream. It must be nice to be a child, who can live in the moment and forget everything with the help of a little tickling.

Noah is good with the kids. I can’t say he isn’t. They adore him, and he loves them as much as I do. And that’s why we’re still together, even though we despise each other. Even though we’ve never said the words out loud, we both know we’re staying together for the kids. For now.