Page 52 of Once Upon a Fall

She keeps painting the same three feet of wall she’s been working on for a while.

“You haven’t heard from them?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “No. Their mom deleted her account, so I can’t even check that.”

Something about that doesn’t sit right with me. She helped raise those kids for years, and then one day, that was apparently the end of it.

“So, you came home after that?”

“Eventually.” She loads the roller with paint. “There was also Jackson.”

“Boyfriend?” I can’t help but ask.

“Jackson Pruitt,” she says. “The Suttons—the family I was working for—introduced us.”

“Jackson Pruitt? That’s a pretentious-sounding name.”

She snorts out a laugh. “Right? And he was very pretentious. He’d tell me how to dress and even wanted me to wear my hair a certain way.”

“Did you want him to?”

She shrugs. “Not really. But he had opinions about everything, and it was usually easier to go along with them.” She tugs on the strap of her overalls. “He would have hated these.”

Jackson sounds like a jackass.

I don’t think anyone has ever asked this woman what she wants.

“What happened with pretentious Jackson?”

“He broke up with me the night I told him I was moving home.” She shrugs. “Long distance is hard.”

She says it like she’s defending him.

She goes back to the wall. “Anyway, it never would have worked. He always wanted to call me Rosaline. Even when I’d correct him.”

“Rosaline? Why?”

She pauses mid-paint-stroke. “That’s my full name.”

I stop and turn my head fully toward her. “Rosaline,” I repeat, testing it out. “You don’t seem like a Rosaline to me.”

I’m not sure why I say that part out loud. Rosaline is a pretty name, but it feels wrong on her.

Rosaline sounds like someone who sits on the board of a private school and makes people nervous at charity luncheons.

Rosie is paint on her cheek, impossible plans, and making room for everyone who asks.

Maybe that was the problem with Boston. They wanted Rosaline—the polished nanny who dressed the right way and made their lives easier. I’m not sure any of them knew Rosie at all.

Her eyes find mine, and she blinks twice, a serious look on her face. “Thank you,” she finally says. “It’s my name, but it’s never really felt like it. Even my mom wished she had just named me Rosie instead.”

“Why didn’t she?” I ask.

“Because she didn’t realize you could do that.”

She’s back to that sentimental smile from earlier.

“If it makes you feel better, Dean was originally my middle name.”