Page 8 of If I Didn’t Have You

“For what?”

I looked at my daughter-in-law and grinned. “I’m going to write a book.”

It went deadly silent around the whole mountain. You couldn’t hear the stream or the falls in the distance. No birds tweeted and the wind stopped blowing as my girls stared at me in stunned silence.

“You’re—” Krista glanced at Bailey, then back to me. “A book! Well, that’s…interesting and so⁠—”

“Amazing,” Bailey finished with a nod.

They were both terrible liars, but I really didn’t care what they thought. I was going to do this for me, and it was going to be amazing.

“Well, as your father says, we’re burning daylight!”

I rushed around them to the car, pulling out my keys as both of them groaned. Nobody liked driving with me, mostly because I drove so slowly, but that was just too bad. I was obeying the speed limit, and there was nothing wrong with that.

“You know, I really think I should drive,” Krista said, rushing around me. “That’ll give you a chance to find things on the way to the city. You’ll need ideas.”

“Yeah, and I can help you look,” Bailey added. “We can make a Pinterest board!”

I knew what they were doing, and any other day, it might have bothered me. But today was a new day. I was starting fresh and becoming a new person.

“Fine, you can drive,” I said, tossing Krista the keys. “But keep it at the speed limit.”

She rolled her eyes at me as she jerked open the driver’s side door. Meanwhile, I sat in back with Bailey, talking the whole way about what I wanted for my new room.

“Does Dad know you’re getting rid of all his stuff?”

“No, but he will,” I grinned.

“So, what brought about this change?” Bailey asked as she continued to slide through images, adding things to my board.

“Well, I can’t really explain it. Maybe it was being poisoned. Or maybe it was just listening to Ben gripe too much about how upset he is. I just…found myself staring at the suds in the sink and I thought, what the hell am I doing with my life?”

“You found that in the suds?” Krista grinned.

“Don’t laugh at me. You’ll understand one day. You’ll be doing the dishes or vacuuming the carpet, and you’ll suddenly realize that you’ve done the same thing every day of your life.”

“You don’t really vacuum every day, do you?” Bailey asked.

“Like clockwork.” It was pathetic now that I thought about it. “See, I get through my day by doing the same thing every day. Once one thing is done, I move on to the next.”

“So, maybe you don’t need to redecorate the den, but find a new routine,” Bailey suggested.

“Shut your mouth!” Krista hissed. “If Mom wants to get rid of that horrible brown color, I’m all for it. And those deer heads are creepy.”

“Trust me, I’ve wanted to get rid of them for a long time. But your grandmother decorated the house, and your father didn’t want to insult her by changing anything. I just went with it all these years.”

“Oh, thank God!” Krista sighed. “I thought you just had really bad taste, and I worried I was going to end up just like you when I got older.”

“I have impeccable taste, thank you very much.”

She cringed as she looked at me in the rearview mirror. “Have you seen those shoes?”

“They’re orthopedic!”

“They’re old lady shoes!”

Glancing at them again, I kind of saw her point. They did look like something Mrs. Abernathy would wear. But they were comfortable, and I was on my feet all day.