EXTRACT FOR
Flight 749
(David Monroe)

Madeline had just about had enough of all the flight delays and cancellations and reroutings on this trip for her boss. Way back flying had once been fun and exciting, but lately, the only way she could describe the whole ordeal was a major pain in her ass. She had been away from home for coming up on a month now flying first one place and then another setting up and the logistics and making all the pre-arrangements just so in order that the road show for the IPO would roll out as smoothly as possible. It had been a long and brutal marathon for Maddie and she sighed heavily as she settled into her seat on the short flight that would go through Houston so she could get the final leg of her trek home and be over and done with living out of her suitcase and eating crappy hotel food for a long, long time.

It had been a bone of contention between her and her husband, Mark, when she had come home to announce she was going to have to make this trip. Mark, normally an even-keeled and centered guy flew off the handle at this news. Maddie knew he hated it when she was gone for long periods of time for work but it was not that he missed her as much as he detested having to take over the management of the house while she was gone. This always annoyed Maddie as she often found herself in this same position when he was sent on some assignment of some sort with his job. But somehow he did not see the hypocrisy in it all. Hell, Maddie said to herself, even when we are both home who does he think handles the majority of it all anyway?

After a month away, she thought her annoyance and frustration at his attitude might have faded, but as the flight to Houston lifted off she found herself still fuming underneath. They had been having other issues along the way lately as well, and Maddie was wondering of maybe after 15 years if they had just gone as far as they could as a couple. She had forgiven an affair he had been involved in over a decade ago, but the sting of that betrayal and the deception she had been the victim of had taken a chunk out of her emotionally. She supposed she still loved Mark, but the trust between them had been severely dented.