A Twist in My Story

Danielle Jonas rummaged around the junk drawer in the kitchen that held all the random things that had been in their kitchen drawers in the old apartment. Finally finding what she had been searching for, she pulled out the small box of matches. Walking into the adjoining room, she pushed the box open, grabbed a match and then closed the box once more. She stroked the small wooden stick against the grainy side of the box, igniting the tip with a small flame. She slowly brought it to the candle in front of her, quickly moving to the next candle before the flame went out. Once both candles were lit, she flicked her wrist, allowing the air to put out the flame of the match. Resting her hands on her flat stomach, she took in the scene before her with a smile on her face.

The large dining room table was one of the first pieces of furniture to have been put in its place after the move, but tonight was the first time it would be used. Danielle had dug out a large table cloth that now adorned the long table. On one side of the table, she had set two dinner places, going so far as to bring out the fancy china. She had to do more scrounging to find it all, but she had, and it was well worth it. The table looked gorgeous, even if it was only set for two. But tonight was a special night and it deserved special decorating.

Going back into the kitchen, she grabbed the two plates she had taken care to prepare, bringing them out into the dining room and setting each in its rightful place. Glancing down at her watch, she felt excitement and nerves flutter in her stomach. It was almost seven o’clock. Kevin would be home soon. She had told him earlier that morning, before he left for work, that she had a special dinner planned for him. With a wide smile, he had promised he would be home early. Then he had kissed her and had been on his way. She had expected him to be here by now, but figured with the rush hour traffic from the city to their new home, it would take him a little while longer to get home.

Checking for the seventh time that everything was perfect, she went into the front room to wait for him. She heard a car coming around the corner and couldn’t help the giddy smile that tugged at her lips. But instead of turning into the driveway, the car continued down the street. Trying not to let dejection weigh her down, she continued to wait. Five cars drove by in the next hour, but none of them pulled into the driveway. Thinking that maybe she had the wrong time, Danielle walked back into the kitchen, only to have all the appliances confirm what she already knew. It was past eight, and Kevin still wasn’t home. Walking into the dining room, she saw the candles had melted a bit and the steam that had been rising from the meal she had prepared had ceased to float into the air. Plopping down in front of one of the candles, she propped her head on her closed fist. She stared blindly into the flame, watching as it flickered, eating away at the red wax beneath it.

A few more minutes passed by. Danielle pulled out her phone, now worried. What if something had happened to her husband? Hitting her first speed dial, she brought her phone up to her ear. It rang six times before it went to voicemail. Kevin’s professional voice rang through the line, but instead of leaving a message, she hung up before trying again. This time it went straight to voicemail. He had turned his phone off. Feeling anger boil within her, Danielle got up forcefully from the table, the brand new chairs screeching against the hardwood floor. Stomping her way into the front room, Danielle sat on the couch, set to wait up until he got home. An hour later, she was struggling to keep her eyes open. She had already cried her eyes out, knowing that Kevin had forgotten about her plans, and now she was just exhausted. Slipping off her heels, she curled up on the couch. By ten o’clock, she was out.

She was so deeply asleep that she didn’t hear when the car she had been waiting for all night pulled into the driveway an hour later, or when the front door opened and her husband stepped inside. Kevin Jonas set his keys on the small table in the foyer and put his briefcase on the ground. He shrugged out of his suit jacket as he walked down the hall, unbuttoning his sleeves and rolling them up.

“Dani?” he called out. The lights in the house had been off when he pulled in, but his wife’s car was sitting in their driveway, so he knew she was home. However, he was met with silence when he called for her. “Dani, are you home?” he asked as he walked into the kitchen. The lights here were also off, making it easy for him to see the slight glow coming from the adjoining room. Stepping into the dining room, he saw two places set on the large table, two tiny stub candles gently flickering, dangerously close to going out. Kevin’s heart immediately sank as his wife’s words from that morning ran through his head.

Come home early. I have a special dinner planned for us, she had told him.

“Shit,” he cursed under his breath, kicking himself in the head for forgetting. He had promised he would be here. And he had let her down.

Blowing out the candles, he turned and set out to find his wife. Walking in and out of the downstairs rooms, turning lights on as he went, he found her curled up on one of the fancy couches in the front sitting room. Guilt churned deeper in his stomach when he saw her dressed up. Once he was closer, he saw that she had also curled her hair the way he loved and that she had even done her make-up, even though it was now smeared across her face. That made him feel even worse than he already did—he knew she had been crying because he hadn’t shown up.

Bringing his hand up, Kevin used his thumb to wipe away her smudged make-up. “Dani,” he whispered gently. He saw her face contort before relaxing again and snuggling closer to the cushion beneath her head. “Dani, wake up,” he tried again, running his hand through her hair before gently shaking her shoulder. This time she started to stir. Kevin waited until she opened her eyes, slowly sitting up as she rubbed the sleep away. “Hey baby,” he whispered gently.

“Kevin?” she asked.

“Yea, it’s me. I’m home. Sorry I missed dinner,” he apologized, running his hand through her hair again. “The bosses wanted to take me out after work to celebrate that deal I sealed earlier this week,” he explained. He had been working on it almost all summer, but he finally got that artist to agree to sign with them.

Kevin watched as his wife closed her eyes, as if she were in pain. Danielle took a deep breath to steel herself for her next words. “You could have called,” she started off, her voice low.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Kevin apologized once again, hoping he could get away with not telling her he had forgotten and hadn’t thought to call to let her know he wouldn’t be able to make her special dinner. But he should have known better than to expect to get away with this—Dani knew him better than anyone.

“You forgot, didn’t you?” Danielle asked, hurt dripping from her voice.

Kevin closed his own eyes and squeezed them tightly. She had caught him. He opened his hazel eyes and took a deep breath before rapidly apologizing. “Yes, I did, but baby, I’m really sorry. Work was nuts today with the signing of that new artist. But I promise I’ll make this up to you. This weekend. I’ll be home this weekend. We can go out to a nice place then.”

Danielle’s eyes snapped open. He just didn’t get it. She shook her head and moved to get off the couch. “Dani, baby,” Kevin called, following her into the dining room.

“Don’t ‘baby’ me Kevin,” she snapped, her angry brown eyes turning on him. “You and I both know we won’t do anything this weekend,” she stated, continuing to gather the cold meal that had gone to waste.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kevin asked, feeling his defensiveness build as he watched his wife dump the meal she had prepared into the trash bin, careful not to break her fancy plates.

Danielle scoffed and turned to look at him, carelessly throwing the plates down on the counter. “Are you kidding me?! You’re never home Kevin! You’re always working! You’ll do anything your bosses tell you at the drop of a hat, forgetting all other previous engagements. Excuse me for not believing you when you say that you’re going to make this up to me,” she replied, angry tears brimming behind her brown eyes.

Kevin felt his anger boil over at her unjustified anger. “Well excuse me if I’m always busy working hard to support our family,” he snapped back.

Danielle broke down at his words, her tears spilling over quickly down her cheeks. “Well if supporting our family is so important to you, you might want to be around more often six months from now when your first child is born!” she yelled at him.

Kevin’s body tensed at her words. Danielle watched him for a few seconds, waiting for some sort of reaction from him, but he just stood there, staring at her with wide eyes. Having had enough, she skirted past him, her tears making it difficult for her to see where she was going. She stumbled up the stairs of their new house and stormed into their bedroom, locking the door behind her. Collapsing on their massive bed, Danielle buried her face in her pillow and cried, allowing all the emotions she had bottled up for weeks spill over in her tears.

She didn’t know how long she had been silently crying, but she did hear Kevin’s light knock on their door. But she didn’t respond. She couldn’t look at him, let alone speak to him at the moment. She had taken such care in planning for tonight. She had cooked his favorite meal and was going to tell him the good news over dinner. She had been thinking of talking to Kevin about having kids when they still lived in the city, so when her birth control ran out, she didn’t bother to order any more. Instead, she focused on getting Kevin to agree on moving out of the fast paced city and to somewhere better suited to start a family. She figured it would be much easier to get him to do that than to dump baby talk on him. She instead planned to tell him that she wanted to start a family once they were settled. But things didn’t always go as planned and before she knew it, she was experiencing the symptoms of a pregnancy. Her doctor had confirmed it in July, placing the date of conception in mid May. She had been ecstatic to hear the news and now, mid August, she was three months along. She had been dying to share her excitement with her husband, but she hadn’t taken into consideration that Kevin was a workaholic and that he would be more concerned with how this affected his job than with their growing family.

“Dani, please open the door,” Kevin murmured from the other side. Danielle ignored him, hugging her pillow tighter to her chest as she continued to cry into her pillow.

On the other side of the door, Kevin was a mess. He had stood in the kitchen for almost fifteen minutes after Dani laid the news on him, trying to wrap his mind around it. Danielle, his wife, was pregnant. It was unfathomable to him—he couldn’t remember the last time they had been intimate with each other! But she was pregnant. He was going to be a father. That realization had him struggling to catch his breath. After he had managed to get his breathing rhythm back to normal, he had crawled upstairs, walking to the door of the bedroom he shared with his wife. And hearing her cry from the other side tugged at his heart.

“Dani,” he muttered again. Still, he didn’t hear any movements from the other side, just her muffled sobs. Closing his eyes, he pressed his forehead to the door, willing back the tears that were threatening to make an appearance. “I’m sorry,” he breathed out quietly, hoping that she had heard him. Turning around, he walked down the hall to their guestroom, which Danielle had put together all by herself after the move. Collapsing on the mattress, Kevin willed his mind to stop spinning, welcoming sleep when it finally came a while later.

The following morning, Danielle sat in bed for a while, silently debating with herself if she should go through with the solution she had come up with the previous night. The silence in the house helped her make up her mind. Getting up, she showered and got dressed, then packed a small suitcase. Walking down the stairs slowly, Danielle caught a glimpse of their driveway—Kevin’s car was still there. The sight made her heart rate speed up. She had expected Kevin to be at work, so the sight of his car still here made her heart flutter unevenly. She stood on the bottom step silently, listening for footsteps, or any type of movement that would let her know where Kevin was. She heard nothing. Turning back around, she walked up the stairs again. Once on the second floor, she opened multiple doors until she reached the room they had dubbed the guestroom.

Her breath caught in her throat when she saw Kevin lying on his stomach, still in his work clothes from the previous day. Tears quickly swelled in her eyes. She loved him so much and had been so excited to share with him the news of their first child. But she couldn’t handle it anymore. She couldn’t handle the lonely days while he was at work, the quiet dinners where she knew he was thinking about what paperwork he had to do, or the fact that he would lock himself in his office after dinner leaving her to silently watch TV before going to bed alone, only to have him join her much later.

Biting her bottom lip to keep her sob from coming out, Danielle turned around and left the room. She came back a few minutes later with a sheet of paper in her hands. Kevin had flipped over and was now lying on his back, snoring loudly. The sound made a fresh wave of tears spring to her eyes as she remembered when they first moved in together—she had to sleep on the couch that first night when his snoring kept her up. Sniffling quietly, she laid the piece of paper in her hands next to him on the bed, knowing he’d see it when he got up. Leaning over him, she pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “I love you Kevin,” she breathed against his lips.

Standing straight, she left the room, grabbing the suitcase she had already taken downstairs and getting into her car. She looked at her brand new house with a forlorn look in her eyes. She had put so much work into decorating it and now she was leaving it behind. And her return to it was now up to Kevin.