What Jon wasn't aware of was that Linda had been gone for some time already. He'd been so caught up with his own problems, he'd accepted when Sarah had said she was working late all week. It wasn't uncommon for her. In fact, it was how he and Karyn had become friendly...they both had mothers who needed childcare while working late.
More recently, Bethany Black had been promoted to a role at a hotel where she didn't have to work nights anymore...although such an emergency had been manufactured to get her away from home. A similar situation had been engineered to get Linda out of the house. Linda had worked for a law firm as an executive assistant, which meant when there was a big case, she often had to work late into the evening.
It made it easy to spirit Linda away and put her on ice to prepare for her new life and substitute Melissa. With each change, Jon's family was becoming less like the one he remembered.
Melissa was oblivious of all of this as she started making dinner, pleased that her late nights at work were over for a while and she could be with her family. She didn't always cook an extensive meal, but tonight she was making spaghetti, meatballs, garlic bread...Sarah would probably complain about the carbs, but it was fine. She'd been a teenager too once...although she didn't know that had been earlier this week. To her, it had been a lifetime ago, and her body showed the signs of those years.
She had just started when Sarah entered. "Need help?" she offered. Sarah and her mother got along well...going shopping together, having girl's days out...almost like best friends...although Melissa wasn't foolish enough to think her daughter didn't have actual friends her own age. She let Sarah catch her up on her life while they worked to make dinner.
