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Until coming to this town, she had never been called any of those things. Well, maybe rule-follower, but she had been that way since birth. At her last job, she had been friends with everyone in the bank, and the bank was twice the size of the one in Landstad.
Tomorrow she would find out if she could still make friends. Maybe after thirty-five, making friends was not a possibility. Was that a secret that older women never talked about? That you can only have the friends you made in your twenties?
Pulling out her phone, she sent a text to her best friend, who was hundreds of miles away.
Tess:Have you made any friends in the last year?
Natasha was also thirty-six. They would have been friends since the day they had met. The conversation between them, together or apart, was ongoing. Natasha talked about her marriage and her kids and her hopes and her dreams. Tess only had her job and her hopes and dreams to share, but she had far fewer than her best friend.
Tasha:I don’t think I have left the house in the last year.
With just a few words, Natasha made Tess laugh. Her mood lightened a little, thinking about her friend. It was hard to believe how close they still were. Natasha had gotten married at seventeen and now had eight kids between the ages of seventeen and one, and she had never had a job. Tess’s life was her job, and she had never had a child or even come close to having one.
Tess:Tell Alex you need a date night.
Tasha: I will not. That is how we got the last one. ;)
Tess:Worth it?
Tasha:She was worth it, but we maybe could have used a couple more years between the last two.
Tess:Last?
Tasha:Yes, last. No more.
Tess:Maybe one more? Or at least to an even ten?
Tasha:NOT TEN.
Tess laughed again. Tasha wanted two children but somehow got eight. She actually had a little excuse for every one of them. The first was an accident, but they were going to get married anyway. The second was okay because they were married. The third was a snowstorm, nothing to do. The fourth was because the first went to school, and she got lonely with just two at home. The fifth was their anniversary. The sixth was something about turning thirty. The seventh was because her husband got a new job, and the celebration went too far. And now the eighth was date night.
Even though Tess had not been happy when Tasha had given up her dreams of college and career to get married, she knew her friend was so happy with the life she had made. Probably happier than Tess was.
Tasha:How did the book thing go?
Tess:Good, we are getting together tomorrow afternoon.
Tasha:Fun?
Tess:Yes, fun. You never were interested in the dark side of humanity.
Tasha:Nope. But you be you. Alex is home—got to pretend to be doing something.
She laughed again at her friend as she put the phone down. Most conversations ended with Alex since Alex is Tasha’s world. Getting up, she grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge and poured herself a big glass. Wine helped everything, unless the world got to be too much—then only vodka would help.
Tess had always wondered if she and Natasha would still be friends if they were not related. The family connection kept them close beyond the time when friendships usually fell apart. Natasha was Tess’s step-niece, though she never actually thought of her as such. They had been friends more than relatives. It was just nice that they were both at family functions.
She sat back under her blanket and finally read through her other texts. Her sister, Ilya, sent some pictures of her new grandchild, a boy this time. Another nephew was raising money for a school trip. Natasha had sent a picture of her two little girls reading on the couch. No caption or message about it, just a picture. Her oldest brother sent a short message about coming home the next weekend.
Sighing, she responded to Mike that it was too far to drive for a short weekend and that maybe he should put it off until February. Really, she was lying. Until winter was over, she didn’t drive over five hundred miles, knowing it could snow at any time. Her car did not handle snow well.
Mike sent the text every week, trying to bully her into coming home more often. Sometimes he mentioned their aging mother as if she didn’t know that her mother was turning seventy-eight this year. Their mother hadn’t had Tess until she was over forty, even older than Tess was now. But she was ready the next time he mentioned their mother since Mike himself turned sixty this year.
Looking out at the snow, she wondered what her mother had thought when she had told her twenty-three-year-old son she was pregnant. He’d already had three kids of his own at the time. In fact, Tess was born with nearly nine nieces and nephews. Four were her brother Alex’s stepchildren, but that was never an issue in their family. Nor was it odd when his stepdaughter Natasha had married his nephew, Alex. It was just accepted as things that happen.
Ilya’s text was expected. She had two children who were having babies this month. Ilya was just like Natasha, just a decade older. She’d been married forever, had a bunch of kids, and now had grandkids. What made Ilya different was that her first husband died in a car accident after fifteen years of marriage, leaving her with six small children. At the time, her sister had been only thirty-three. For two years she, was a single mom with a job and all the stress that involved. No other sibling had been unwed after the age of twenty except Tess.
That had come to an end when Ilya had fallen back in love with her high school flame, who was also widowed with seven kids. So together, they had thirteen kids, only to round the number to eighteen before they stopped having babies altogether. Ilya would be spending the rest of her life sending pictures of grandbabies to Tess.
