Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Sugar lets the devil in. I didn’t know who told her that, but she’d said it often enough.
When she got too sick to come downstairs, I stocked the fridge with whatever I wanted, including ice-cold cans of ginger ale and my favorite, orange soda. I pushed back from the table, the chair legs scraping the worn linoleum, swung open the door of the ancient refrigerator, and grabbed a can. The sugar went straight to my brain, tasting vaguely of oranges and exactly like heaven.
I needed to make a list, a plan. When she first got sick, I was twenty-nine, still in the figuring-it-all-out phase of life, feeling like I had an eternity stretching before me to settle on what I wanted. A career? My own family? Taking care of other people’s children had allowed me to see the world with people I loved, while saving almost all of my salary.
I liked clothes, but I was frugal when it came to everything else. My families paid for room and board and supplied a vehicle when I’d needed one. My expenses were low. I had a nest egg—a good one. I had degrees and just enough classroom experience that I could find a job if I was willing to be flexible on location. I thought I’d be ready to jump into a new life the moment Harriet was gone.
Instead, I was still here, the weight of this house crushing my ambitions. In Harriet’s last months, I’d begun to clean out the closets, knowing the inevitable was coming. We both knew. The doctors had been kind but clear. There was no last-minute reprieve on the way—she was sick, and she would die. Their concern was making her comfortable. Not that Harriet McKenna could ever be made comfortable. She was too demanding for that. In my opinion, she thrived in a state of complaint. She didn’t want to be comfortable. She wanted to harangue, to order, to criticize—and she did all three in abundance.
I managed to sort through the garage and the guest room closet while she was dying, and it felt like I’d made great progress. But now, looking around, there was so much left. The furniture. Paintings on the walls. Boxes and boxes in the attic, all waiting for me to deal with them. So many decisions.
I hadn’t expected to feel so apathetic. I didn’t want to sort through the detritus of Harriet’s life. I wanted to blink and have it all disappear, to be back in Paris, in my little room next to the children, waiting for them to wake up so I could get them dressed and take them to the park or drop them off at school.
I let out another self-pitying sigh and drained the last of my soda. The truth was, I didn’t know if that was what I wanted. The Smiths didn’t need me back. As always happened, the kids were old enough now—attending school full-time—that they didn’t need a live-in nanny. Janice had emailed a week before.
So sorry to hear about your mom, Paige. I wish I could be there to give you a hug. We miss you so much, but the kids are loving school. I don’t know what you have planned, but I got word from a friend of a friend who’s looking for a live-in. Not quite what you’re used to, a small town in the mountains, but the family is lovely and a little desperate—they haven’t been able to find anyone. Are you interested? Just let me know, and I’ll pass your information along.
- <3 Janice
Was I interested? I’d spent six years traveling the world, and the last eighteen months in a small town in Ohio. I wasn’t enjoying the contrast. Did I want to bury myself in another small town? Did I want another family? Or did I want the classroom? That was what I’d trained for, where I’d always intended to end up. In theory, teaching was the goal. But when I closed my eyes and tried to envision it, the picture wouldn’t gel.
I hadn’t answered Janice. I knew time was running out, and at this point, I was just being rude. She’d called, and I’d let it go to voicemail, stuck in this listless state, hating where I was, unable to move on.
I squeezed the empty can of orange soda and dropped it in the recycling bin. I didn’t have to decide today. I did have to pack at least a box or two and load the back of my mother’s car with things to take to the donation site. I had to do something or I’d spend the rest of my life here, in this relic of a house, watching the linoleum curl at the corners, staring at the phone on the wall that never rang.
I let out another sigh, disgusted at my own self-pity. Dragging myself up the stairs, I pulled the cord to drop the ladder to the attic. It was less of a disaster up there than I’d remembered. Half of the boxes were old clothes. I tossed them through the ladder hole and watched them bounce down to the second-floor hallway, destined for the donation pile.