Awakening the Hawthorne Name
As I was planning my return to work after having our baby, I stumbled upon two VIP passes to the Emberglow Music Festival in California in my husband Cole's study.
My heart leaped with joy, certain it was a surprise he had prepared for our wedding anniversary.
However, on the day of our anniversary, he told me his company was holding an emergency tech summit in Austin and that he had to leave on a business trip immediately.
A knot of pure dread tightened in my stomach. That night, while scrolling through my phone, I saw an Instagram Story a friend had forwarded me.
In the video, his college love, Sienna Vance, was passionately kissing Cole inside a VIP tent at the music festival, the music thundering in the background. The video was captioned:
"Under the Emberglow stars. Some things are just meant to be. #reunited #truelove"
I didn't tearfully call and scream at him. Instead, I calmly walked into the nursery, gazed down at my sleeping daughter, and then picked up my phone.
"Dad, I'm ready. I'm taking over the West Coast project."