Travel plans

“Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.”
--Charles Dickens
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22 March 2010 -- Chicago, IL
It is mid-afternoon and that light that spills in through the window pane is an early-Spring warm.  It is not the white-blue hot of summer, or the crisp-cold blue of winter.  This is something in between.  It stretches out in broad and dangerously pointed shapes, cutting swaths of shadow away.

Emily cradles the phone between her shoulder and her ear.  Types impatiently at the keyboard. Waits.

"Emily Littleton," she says, clearly, when the line connects.

"Heathrow."

"The third through the tenth of April."

Please hold, the travel coordinator says in a polite, crisp tone.  Emily pulls her passport from her messenger bag, reads the number to the woman on the other end of the call.  All of this is done with a distracted half-attention that culminates in a polite "Thank you" and a warmer "Have a good evening."

She doesn't look at the phone as she thumbs the disconnect button.  Her thumb finds the little bump, similar to the markers on home row keys, and taps it without hesitation.  She does not, however, set the phone aside.

It comes with her, in the pocket of her jeans, as she rummages around in Chuck's newly stocked kitchen and tries to find a passable kettle, an acceptable mug, and a corner of counterspace in which to make tea.  She doesn't trust him, of course, to have an assortment of fine teas on hand.  (In truth, Emily doesn't expect any Continentals to have the proper tea-making things. [There have been a few pleasant surprises--in Kage, in Jarod--but as a rule, it was a safer assumption.])

The leaves she's brought with her steep for a few minutes, fill this small corner of the kitchen with the scent of jasmine.  Only as she's carrying her tea back to the table, where her laptop is and her passport remains (a maroon splotch on the otherwise tech-cluttered table), does Emily place her second call.

"Gregory?" she asks, waiting for him to confirm before continuing.

"I'm coming home."