Atlas
“Yes excuse me, but is Chief Darrell Simms in currently?”
“I’m sorry he’s not, he left for his office this morning. May I ask who’s calling?”
“Sorry to bother you, ma’am.”
The phone clicked as the caller hung up. Monica frowned for a second before pressing the ‘end’ button and setting the phone back on the counter.
Her husband didn’t normally get many business calls at the house; Darrell almost never worked outside the George Bush Center for Intelligence Building and one of the benefits of being a Section Chief was having your own office to take the annoying calls for you.
Putting the call out of her mind, Monica sighed and looked around the house. Laundry was done, the house was clean, Lacey was content with watching TV, and they were having leftovers for dinner. A lazy Sunday if there ever was one. Maybe she could use this time to catch up on that old classic sitting untouched ever since she read the first few chapters. As it turned out, owning the classic proved to be a bit more fulfilling than actually reading it.
Monica picked up the doorstop of a book and plopped down on the coach, determined to slog through a few chapters.
-
Monica woke up to her cell ringing. Blinking the sleep away, she picked up and fixed her fallen book before checking the ID. It was Darrell.
“Hey babe,” Monica mumbled, sitting up and yawning, “What’s up? Aren’t you supposed to be working right now?”
“Hey, nothing, I’m just calling to make sure everything’s all right. Everything, uh, fine there?”
“Yeah everything’s pretty normal,” Monica said, leaning over to see into the living room where Lacey was still glued to the television, “I was just reading-”
“Yeah, sorry, sorry. Listen, I just wanted to tell you I love you very much. You know that right?”
Monica arched an eyebrow. Did his voice just crack? “And Lacey too. Could you tell her that for me?”
“Um, yeah, yeah of course. Darrell, is something wrong?” Monica was fully awake now. Something definitely sounded off. She could hear people talking in the background of Darrell’s office. A lot of people.
“Oh no, no, nothing. I just- hey, I gotta go. I’ll see you tonight okay? I love you.”
“Yeah, I love you too,” Monica said. She could hear the line hesitate a second before a click ended the call. She stared at her phone a second longer before shaking her head and standing up. Weird.
“Hey baby,” Monica called into the living room, “Daddy says he loves you.”
“Okay,” came the response. Monica walked into the room. No sense sleeping now.
“What are you watching?”
-
Darrell came home a few hours later than normal. Monica met him at the doorway and did her usual kissing and hugging ritual before letting him in.
“Hey. Is Lacey in bed?”
“Yeah. I tucked her in an hour ago. She wanted to stay up, but it’s a school night and your lazy ass couldn’t get home on time,” Monica said with a smile. Darrell cracked a smile too and started making his way to the stairs. “Wait, you don’t want any dinner? I saved some leftover lasagna.”
Darrell shook his head.
“Not tonight. I’m beat. I’m just gonna hit the sack.”
“All right then,” Monica said, following Darrell up the stairs and into the bedroom. “So how was work today? Couldn’t have been that bad if you found the time to call me in the middle of the day.”
“Actually, it was pretty busy. We had to work with FBI and NSA today. Bit of a mad house,” Darrell replied, changing into his pajamas and slipping into the bed.
“So happened?” Monica asked as she changed. Darrell didn’t respond.
“Ugh, let me guess, OPSEC? Super secret government stuff?”
“Pretty much babe. Sorry,” was the mumbled response.
Monica curled up in the sheets next to her husband. She couldn’t help but notice the grey spots in Darrell’s hair, right on the temples, had been growing larger recently. His father never had grey hair, did he? Especially not at thirty-two.
“Still, thanks for finding the time to call me during your busy day. It was nice.”
Darrell felt Monica cuddle close as she fell asleep.
“Yeah. No problem. Just a busy day,” Darrell mumbled to himself, staring off into the wall, “Real busy.”
He wasn’t smiling.
