The sun stood high in the clear, cerulean sky. From across the street, Giselle glanced back at the apartment building and sighed. She remembered how her life with Ian had started back eight years ago. It was sweet, romantic and certainly gave her what she needed to find back in the day. Stability and companionship. While her take on love had never been as rigid as other people believed, Ian had been very inflexible and almost bullheaded about it. Across the years she'd seem him fail to comprehend anything that remotely deviated from the purely monogamous norm. The decision to return back to Celestine and by all means replace the woman in his life seemed to be a direct result of his inflexibility. It almost felt stupid and incomprehensible to her. Her love for him never waned, even when she found new excitement with Annie.

When she turned to walk away, she pressed her lips together and suppressed tears. Today had marked a turning point and her future became a flux state. Change was always tough to deal with, more so when facing it alone. She wasn't all alone, but the part of her marriage ending was something she'd need to face alone.

Under birch trees, she found an old bench. Recently, when she had walked this path with Annie, they had passed this bench as well, but didn't linger. The light breeze rustled through the leaves above her and the chatter of birds moved rapidly through the branches as they chased each other through the tree tops.

After spending some time to calm her emotions, Giselle took her phone from the pocket and glanced at the screen. There were three calls from Ian from yesterday evening. Annie had completely enveloped her and she hadn't checked the phone. It didn't cross her mind to check it until now. What had Ian wanted? She had told him that she wasn't coming home. Then again, what did it matter now.

Her finger flicked through the open chats, the most recent ones were up top. There was Laury, Ian, Annie and her mom. Last time she had chatted with her mother, she had thrown a very ambiguous question into the chat that seemed to be about the wooden elephant. Somehow her mother had sensed that and given her a very generic life advice. _You'll regret clinging to your past_ was what she had written. Reading that message again made her heart heavy. Had she thrown away something she had been building for pure luck? No, it wasn't that easy. It never was. Ian's attempt to meet Celestine at The Mariner hadn't been a coincidence.

Her finger flipped down the list of contacts and pressed on the small icon next to her mother's entry. Her phone pressed against her ear and she could hear the tooting. "Hello?", a calm, soft voice asked through the line. "Hey mom, it's been a while!". "Yes, it has been, Giselle. I admit your last message left me a little worried, but I know that you can take of yourself". A weak smile crept onto Giselle's lips when she glance up into the canopy of leaves. She fought tears, successfully, but her voice struggled to sound composed, "I'm okay, but things are tough right now". After a brief silence, her mother spoke up, "If you need someone to listen to something, I'm here. You know that, right?". "I know, mom. I guess I don't even know where to start. It's not like I messed up or anything. Guess life just took me on a roller coaster ride?", she started her story and pondered about how much she even wanted to involve her mother at all. Her life had always been that, her own. She'd always done whatever she pleased no matter how frustrated her mother had been. And then, after taking another very deep breath, she explained briefly how she met Annie, had gotten closer to Laury, summed up meeting Celestine at The Mariner and finally her failed attempt to mend her marriage.

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"And that's about where I am at now. I know that a grown-up maybe should've turned on their brain before setting out on a risky adventure, but sometimes that's rather hard to do. Honestly I'm not even sure anymore whether this is about Annie and me. It doesn't matter, either. At least I don't have to deal with my mother-in-law anymore", Giselle ended her monologue and chuckled. Surprising to herself, retelling the story didn't affect her emotionally as much as she had feared.

"That explains your weird message about the elephant, I guess", her mother said, trying to be funny in a situation that certainly wasn't. "Back then I was still trying to sort out what I wanted to do about Annie". "Do you think you'll be happy with a woman? I mean, when I was young, things like these weren't exactly possible". "I don't know, mom! Ian and me were never the perfect fit, but we made due. I have no idea about Annie. Thanks for not yelling at me", the brunette said softly and got up to walk the gravel path toward the fields. "Why would I yell at you?", her mother's voice changed. It became a little frantic. "Remember why we didn't see eye to eye when I was younger? You didn't want me to make my own decisions!". She could hear someone breathe heavily. "I'm sorry about that, Giselle. It was never my intention. I just...", the voice trailed off and picked up the conversation on a different note, "I hope it'll turn out okay, Giselle. I really do. Just don't let Ian rip you off on the argument that he earned more money than you did!". This comment distracted her enough to fall silent. Annie had brought that up as well, what did she want to do with the apartment? The car? Their shared possessions? Could she afford an apartment? And pay out Ian if it came to that? "Daughter, are you still there?"