Always First

For seven years, a wife has lived by her husband Ace Hensley's colour-coded calendar: red for what cannot be moved, yellow for what is flexible, gray for what can be pushed aside. Her own appointments, her health, her father's surgery and even the day their marriage was to be made official all fall into gray, while every need of Peyton, the widow of his late mentor, is treated as untouchable. On their anniversary she waits alone as the candles burn down, then opens the calendar's history and sees the pattern plainly.

She packs her documents, sends divorce papers to her lawyer, and tells Ace she is no longer willing to carry Peyton's problems as her own. He insists Peyton has no one else and that a wife should help shoulder the burden, and when a message from the hospital arrives, he chooses to go to her again, asking his wife to postpone her meeting with the lawyer.

He still believes she will give in as she always has, unaware that she has already begun removing herself from every plan he has for the rest of his life.