Chapter 9 - The Empty Seat
Eleven months passed.
Dakota and I did not move back in together.
That surprised everyone.
Especially people who believed happy endings happened the moment divorce papers disappeared.
Real life was slower.
We dated.
Awkwardly.
Coffee first.
Then dinner.
Then a Braves game where Dakota spent six innings explaining that she had always hated baseball and only attended games because I liked them.
“You could have told me.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Approximately forty times.”
Fair.
I learned.
She learned too.
She stopped saying “nothing” when something hurt.
I stopped accepting “nothing” because it was convenient.
We attended marriage counseling.
Sometimes sessions ended with us laughing in the parking lot.
Sometimes we drove home separately without speaking.
Both were progress.
I started a small financial ethics consulting firm with two former Bellweather auditors.
Nothing glamorous.
No private offices.
No executive car.
But I slept better.
Dakota became a senior international flight attendant.
Flight 912 remained her favorite route.
The Daniel Vieri Foundation officially opened the following spring.
Charles Bell attended.
He stood quietly in the back row.
Afterward, he approached Dakota.
“I owe your family an apology I can’t make large enough.”
Dakota looked at him.
“Then don’t make it large.”
Charles frowned.
“Make it useful.”
He did.
He donated his remaining personal interest in Bellweather’s European assets to the restitution program.
A month later, he began lecturing at the foundation about corporate accountability.
Life had a strange sense of humor.
Trinity received probation and community service in exchange for cooperation.
Caleb was convicted.
Vanessa pleaded guilty before trial.
None of those outcomes repaired what happened.
But consequences were not repair.
They were simply consequences.
Repair was quieter.
It was Dakota calling when her flight landed.
It was me remembering she hated lilies but loved peonies.
It was learning that apologies should not contain the word but.
Then came our tenth wedding anniversary.
Technically, we were still married.
Practically, we had spent nearly a year rebuilding from the foundation.
I booked dinner at the small restaurant where I proposed.
Dakota never arrived.
At 7:30, I received a message.
Airport. Terminal F. Gate 22.
That was it.
I drove there.
Dakota had arranged a security pass through the airline.
At Gate 22, passengers were boarding.
Flight 912.
Florence.
Dakota stood beside the door in uniform.
For a moment, the memory was so vivid I could barely breathe.
Her standing there.
Trinity holding my arm.
That calm smile.
“Welcome aboard, sir.”
I stopped.
“Seriously?”
Dakota’s mouth twitched.
“Boarding pass.”
I handed it over.
Seat 2A.
Beside it, 2B was empty.
I looked at her.
“Who’s sitting beside me?”
“You’ll see.”
“That phrase has historically caused me significant anxiety.”
She laughed.
I boarded.
On my tray table was an envelope.
Of course.
I waited.
Passengers boarded.
The door closed.
Seat 2B remained empty.
Then Dakota approached.
“May I sit?”
“You work here.”
“I’m deadheading home after Florence.”
She changed seats with an off-duty crew member and sat beside me.
I handed her the envelope.
“You open it.”
“No.”
“I have trauma.”
“You earned some of it.”
“Also fair.”
I opened it.
Inside were two photographs.
The first was from our wedding.
The second was taken three weeks earlier at Palazzo Vieri.
Dakota and me standing beneath the foundation sign.
Between them was a blank card.
“What is this?”
“The first picture is who we were.”
I looked at the second.
“And this?”
“Who we are now.”
“What’s the blank card?”
She looked nervous.
Dakota almost never looked nervous anymore.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
She reached into her pocket.
For one wild second, I thought she had a ring.
Instead, she removed mine.
My original wedding ring.
The one I thought I had lost months earlier.
“You kept it?”
“You left it at my apartment after counseling.”
I stared at her.
Dakota held it between us.
“I don’t want another wedding.”
My heart stopped.
Then she continued.
“I want another marriage.”
I couldn’t speak.
“No pretending the first one didn’t happen,” she said. “No erasing what you did. No pretending what I did afterward was perfect either.”
“Dakota—”
“I’m not finished.”
I shut my mouth.
She smiled.
“I want a marriage where neither of us has to investigate the other. Where ordinary conversations matter. Where if something is wrong, we say it.”
My eyes burned.
“And the blank card?”
“We write the rules together.”
I looked at the ring.
“Are you giving that back?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“There’s one condition.”
I laughed through tears.
“Of course there is.”
Dakota leaned closer.
“Florence first.”
The aircraft began taxiing.
She slipped the ring into my palm but closed my fingers around it.
“Don’t put it on yet.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s something waiting at Palazzo Vieri.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
She smiled.
“No.”
“Dakota.”
“For once in your life, Mason Reed, enjoy not knowing.”
May you like
The plane lifted into the night.
And for once, I did.
