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the overhead speaker.   “For those of you going on to the islands, see the flight attendant at the gate for your commuter flight transport information. Due to weather, you might experience a slight delay before your departure.”
     
    Bone-tired from work, and the workout she’d put on him the night before, Thelma knew Martin was spent. He was a fine man, a good provider and a wonderful, patient father, and she loved him to death.
     
    But he’d made that one mistake in judgement. Just that one.
     
    Thelma tried for a long time to forgive and forget, but she couldn’t. Each time she came close to forgiving Martin for the affair, the vision of her own father came to mind.
     
    Theodore Thaxton, III had made plenty of errors in judgment; ever since she could remember. Thelma was just a girl, but she was old enough to hear her parent’s arguments and understand what they were fighting about.
     
    Her father was a serial cheater, and her mother had had just about enough. During the last big fight, she’d vowed to leave him, but the car crash happened before she did. Thelma knew it was no accident; her father had her mother killed. Their home was a big one in Bel Air Estates, but she could hear everything going on in the library from her bedroom … she overheard her paying the man he’d hired to compromise wires on her mother’s Mercedes.
     
    That was a long time ago, but Thelma remembered it like it was yesterday. One day her mom was there, and the next day she wasn’t; all because her daddy wanted to have lots of women.
     
    Tears crept into Thelma’s eyes as she thought about Carson. She loved their son.
     
    She knew Martin did, too. The boy was the light in both their eyes.
     
    But Martin made a mistake cheating with Apple Callahan. And he had to pay for that … he had to.
     
    Sometimes when she looked at Martin, she saw her father. She knew they were different men; but she saw him just the same.
     
    Her daddy had long passed.
     
    But Martin was still alive. And though she loved him -- she loved them both -- he had made that one fatal mistake by sleeping with Apple Callahan.
     

 
     
    Chapter 10
     
    Several hours later …
     
    Thelma and Martin had boarded the little commuter plane for the islands. The weather had been choppy, so they’d had an extended delay at Nadi International. Thelma could have used the opportunity to call Cynthia, but she chose not to because she didn’t want to worry her; she knew she’d called once they landed in Fiji. The commuter flight was less fifteen minutes in total, so she decided she’d call as soon as they landed.
     
    ***
     
    They had been in the air less than ten minutes when the wind began swatting the little two-engine plane back and forth like it was a paper towel in the sky.
     
    “I don’t want to die, Martin,” Thelma said, holding her husband’s hand so tight her knuckles were white.
     
    “Shhh, we’ll be okay,” Martin tried to reassure.
     
    Thelma could hear the nervousness in her husband’s voice, which made her more scared.  
     
    “It’s just a little turbulence,” he said.
     
    The lights in the cabin went dark and the captain attempted to come over the loud speaker.
     
    “Folks make sure your seatbelts are fastened...” The loud speaker was barely audible before a loud bout of static. Then silence. A harrowing few seconds later that felt like an eternity, the captain came back on. “Flight attendants, please take your seats.” Restrained panic filled the captain’s voice.
     
    More static. Then the plane dropped several feet causing several overhead bins to pop open. 
     
    Passengers wailed as luggage went careening through the cabin.
     
    “Flight attendants… prepare … emergency landing!”
     
    The plane sped up and tilted in a downward spiral. Several passengers started screaming as the speed of the drop increased. The pressure dropped and throughout the cabin, little clear and yellow air masks cold be seen dropping