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Victoria had tested positive for covid. Never showed any real symptoms beyond losing the ability to taste things for a week. Eileen she was and is grateful that it was only that. Of course she was.
She never caught it but still she had to isolate. While she was at home playing mother, Montgomery died. Eileen found out by text. The same message just copy and pasted to all the staff.
He'd been one of the few who had seen her skill and not that she was a woman or the color of her skin throughout her career. Montgomery was one of the few people who had been able to draw a genuine smile out of her.
When they argued he didn't back down. Raymond did. Anything for that quiet life. He'd agree to jump through fire to stop her nagging. She wished he was a bad husband to give her reason to walk out. One where no one would blame her for the marriage failing.
He didn't cheat. He wasn't abusive. Raymond had no vices like drinking or gambling. Many would kill for a man like him.
The first time she and Montgomery kissed it had been mid argument. Eileen cannot remember who kissed who first, only that she had waited to feel guilty over it. It never came. Not after the meetings in hotel rooms, not when she came home and lied about where she'd been.
She had been waiting for Victoria to be grown up before ending her marriage. Montgomery had accepted that. A few more years he'd been happily retired, Victoria would have been grown up, Eileen would have the life she wanted.
Robby should have tried harder. Fought for him for longer. She said it once to Dana and the blonde slapped her so hard it made her teeth ache. “If you ever repeat that to Robby, the next emergency that walks through that door will be you.” Dana had meant it. Eileen knew it.
No matter how she tried to push away those thoughts the anger bled out any moment she was around Robby. Victoria thought he was great. The choices that man made cost Eileen her lover.
She was not going to let him drag her daughter down with him in that crumbling department if she could help it.