“I get lost in my work,” I explained to Joe as we walked across the meadow. “I keep forgetting to eat.”
“Me, too. That’s why I have the same stopping point every day so I can focus on a good dinner.”
“Smart. An organized schedule would help me. I thought this was just a hobby, but it’s turned into a career so fast.”
A wonderful career. I had never had a career before. I had worked menial jobs to get Steve through business school, but other than that, I had never had an actual career or business. It was all new to me and a little scary, but I loved every minute of it.
“Funny how things that are supposed to happen just happen,” Joe said. “When it’s right, it happens fast.”
That’s how it was for Joe and his girlfriend, Josephine. She was a professional sailor. They had met only a few weeks ago, but they were planning to sail to Tahiti together. They were going to leave next week, and they didn’t know when they would return.
“Here we go,” Joe said, and opened the barn door.
Joe had been right about it needing a good cleaning. Nobody had used it for at least fifty years, but it wasn’t as bad as I had expected. In fact, standing just inside the door, I could visualize where Jenny and I would have our workstation and where we could store the completed chairs. There was another space for an office, and I fantasized about having more workers coming and going, helping out.
I was filled with a sense of optimism. I felt that the business could actually work. I would have to figure out a name for the business. Something clever about chairs, maybe, although I was thinking of expanding to other kinds of furniture, too.
“This is too much,” I said to Joe. “I can’t accept this. I have to pay for it, and I don’t have the money right now. Maybe I’ll move into the barn in a year or so.”
“How about this?” Joe counteroffered. “You move your business into the barn now, and when you’re turning a big, healthy profit, you pay me out of that? Look, the barn is just standing empty. It could use some love. Besides, you’re going to look after the compound and my house while I’m away, so let’s just say it’s even-steven for now.”
I shook his hand. “Deal.”
I stopped at Paul’s kitchen on the way back to my bungalow, and he gave me a baguette straight out of the oven. When I returned home, I washed my hands in the kitchen and made a ham, butter, and pickle sandwich on the baguette and sat down in my breakfast nook. The sandwich was delicious, and I washed it down with a cup of apple tea that Jenny had brought over one evening.
My phone rang, and I was thrilled that it was my son, Jamie. He had been calling more often lately. Most of the time he wanted to talk about the divorce papers he was writing, but sometimes he called just to say hello and give me an update on his life.
“He signed the papers,” Jamie announced when I answered the phone.
“No way. I don’t believe you.”
“I told you he would.”
Jamie had written up divorce papers that gave me half of the value of the house, returned me my car fully paid off, gave me fifty percent of Steve’s 501K, and spousal support of five thousand dollars a month for five years. Considering that Steve’s original offer to me in the divorce was a big fat zero, I couldn’t believe he would sign off on Jamie’s deal.
“Mom, it’s a fair divorce. If he didn’t sign it, he wouldn’t be fair.”
“I repeat,” I said. “I can’t believe he signed it.”
“I may have also threatened to sue him for emotional distress and kicking you out of your house and closing the bank accounts and taking the car.”
“Jamie Farris, did you purposely scare your father?” I asked.
“Mom, I’m a lawyer. I scare people for a living. Anyway, I have to get back to work, but I wanted to give you the news. You should be getting a check by the end of the month for the assets, and your first spousal support check should get to you by next week. If you don’t get it by then, call me, and I’ll scare him again. I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too.”
He hung up, and I stared at the phone.
How did everything in my life suddenly start going so well? One minute I was a mess, terrorizing poor pimply-faced Trevor at the grocery store because they were out of Rocky Road ice cream, and the next minute, I had money, a happy home, a passionate career, and I was waiting on a beautiful man to come and doencounterswith me.
It’s like I had won the Mega Millions and the Powerball all at the same time.
Hudson had emailed me three times in the past couple of weeks, but he didn’t tell me where he was, what he was doing, or the exact date he was going to return. I worried about him, but not too much because I knew he was good at his job, and he had to do it in order to be happy. It was his calling.
I finished my sandwich and washed the plate in the sink. There was a knock at the door, and I opened it. I was surprised when a golden retriever puppy walked in.
“Hello?” I called, but there was no one there. Just the puppy. “You are the cutest thing in this world,” I said, and picked her up. She was a ball of fur with a nose and a tongue. She licked me, and I hugged her to me. “I love you so much, and I’ve just met you. Who are you? Who do you belong to?”
