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“Okay, I’ll be ready. Thanks for this. I mean it.”
She sat back, shut her eyes, and realized she felt nothing but relief.
Thirty days moved fast. She gave her bosses her notice, helped train her replacements. Since she’d have no need for them, she sold or gave away the rest of her furniture, the contents of her kitchen cabinets, even her cleaning supplies.
No matter how she’d braced for it, saying goodbye proved harder than she’d imagined.
On the morning of the settlement, when she locked the empty house for the last time, the relief she fought to cling to dropped into misery.
She’d cry later. She promised herself a champion-level crying jag, but later.
With the paperwork complete, the new owners beaming, she comforted herself that someone would love what could no longer be hers.
Maybe they’d take that wall down, and build a sweet little front porch.
She walked out of the settlement office with a check that totaled hardly more than two weeks’ pay. Since it seemed best not to think about how thrilled she’d been when she’d walked out of that same office as a homeowner, she blocked it out.
She got into Nina’s car with her suitcases already loaded, and drove north.
When she’d made her annual trek to Vermont for Christmas—except this past one, which she’d spent alone—she’d taken the train.
A happy little trip, she thought now, with her single suitcase, bag of gifts, and all that holiday cheer.
The drive from the outskirts of Baltimore to Westridge, Vermont, would take her a solid eight hours according to the GPS on her phone.
She hoped to make it without an overnight stop. And with bigger hope that Nina’s car would make it.
She drove away from the first whispers of spring and into the firm grip of winter, with its shivering trees and a quick squall of sleet.
After skirting Philadelphia, then New York, she stopped to gas up, stretch her legs. In the parking lot she ate half the PB&J she’d packed and watched a couple walk a big, curly haired dog.
A dog had been in her long-range plans, she remembered, after she’d established her own business. Not a big dog, she thought, but not one of those pocket jobs either. A nice sensible-size dog who’d curl at her feet when she did paperwork and romp around the backyard—no digging in the garden. A sweet and quiet-natured dog she’d raise from a frisky puppy.
She saw her imaginary dog stretched out on her finished back deck to soak up the summer sun. Sitting patiently in her open, cheerful kitchen while she filled his food and water bowls. Greeting her with wagging tail when she came home from work.
She’d need a dog door, of course, leading out from the kitchen to the deck and yard. And…
She caught herself, closed her eyes.
“Stop. Just stop. That’s done.”
Appetite gone, she wrapped the second half of the sandwich and continued on her way.
She drove through Connecticut, into Massachusetts. Snow, white and thick, covered everything on either side of the highway, and the sky—gray as lead—surely held more. Wind streamed down from the rising hills, sent snow flying, drifting.
Traffic slowed to the point she felt herself drifting like the snow. So she pulled off again, walked in the frigid air. With light leaching out of the day, she nearly gave in.
A decent motel, a warm, quiet space, sleep.
She bought a large coffee instead and texted her mother she’d arrive in a few hours.
We’ll be here. Got a big pot of beef stew waiting. Drive safe.
She added a heart emoji, and feeling obligated, Morgan answered with another.
Ignoring the signs of lodging, she crossed into Vermont and the Green Mountains.
There was beauty here—maybe frozen at this time, but beauty. She couldn’t deny it, and had always enjoyed it on her holiday visits, her short childhood trips in summer.
