Because I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be okay with the fact that he’d stopped fighting.
“Have we talked about Thanksgiving yet?” my mom asked, a welcome distraction from where my thoughts were heading.
It was still over two months away but she was a planner at heart. Another trait I’d inherited from her.
“Nope.” I sighed. How could the family holidays be cranking up already? The only one in my sight lines was Halloween.
“Well, Taylor said she’d be happy to host, but I’m not sure I want to put that pressure on her, being pregnant and all. Maybe I should just have it at our place?”
Our. The word hung in the air. It was her place now, there was no “ours” for my mom.
“We could help her,” I answered quickly before she couldcorrect herself. “Potluck-style. And it’s not like she’d need to make a huge turkey since Ryan and I don’t eat it.”
My brother-in-law and I had bonded early over our vegetarian status in a family of meat eaters.
“Hm. I don’t know...”
“No, Mom, it would be great to let her do it,” I said, amping up my enthusiasm. “She’s been offering for years. And you know she wants to show off the kitchen renovation.”
“That’s true. Ryan’s parents haven’t seen it yet and she could invite them too.”
“Exactly!” I enthused, almost a little too over the top. But I wasn’t faking it. Thanksgiving at my sister’s could be a great new tradition. A fresh start.
A way to not focus on how different things felt now.
“Okay, I’ll talk to her about it. Maybe you two could stop by for coffee and we could plan...”
“Yup, definitely soon. I have to run, Edith is sniffing the ground,” I lied. “Love you, ’bye!”
I pushed disconnect as my mom was probably offering to build a guest wing at her house for Edith so she could watch her. The fact that the woman’s generosity knew no bounds made me feel like that much more of an asshole.
“C’mon, you two lovebirds, let’s go for a walk.”
Birdie hopped up immediately, or as immediately as her old bones would allow, and Edith followed right behind her. I smiled when Bird turned to make sure that the puppy was close.
Our walk was a painful reminder that my wrist was still a mess even though I could use a spiderweb to walk Bird and it wouldn’t pull taut. Normally navigating a trainee dog and a tenured professor at the same time was a no-go, but I was allowedto break my own rules when I was short on time. I kept my eye on the puppy, taking in her quirks. There were many. Rather than walking forward, her technique was to pause, wait until she was nearly the full leash length behind us, then run up behind Birdie and try to get tangled in her legs.
“You’re making me look bad, kid,” I joked as I tried to straighten out the puppy’s leash. Birdie gave me a ridiculous wide-mouth pant that made her look like she was having the time of her life and I laughed at her. Even though I never would’ve picked a puppy at this stage in my life, it wasn’t like I had a choice. She needed me.Us. I felt fortunate that Edith had both me and my seen-it-all senior to help show her the ropes.
Twenty minutes later Edith and I arrived at Frolic to find my work neighbor Roz loading her signature yellow bakery boxes into her minivan. What had started out as a weekend side hustle in Rozalynn Thompson’s kitchen had grown into a full-time business called Auntie Roz’s Smart Cookies, with flavors that ranged from lemon shortbread bars to sweet potato sugar cookies. Her signature braids, oversized glasses, and equally big smile were incorporated into her logo, and she was now getting recognized in public because of her cartoon avatar.
“Hey, Roz, you look busy,” I called to her as I unbuckled Edith from her seat belt.
She waved to me. “Hey, Chels. Yeah, I’m booked and blessed. Who’s that little cutie?”
“Meet your new neighbor—Edith. I just adopted her, sort of,” I said as we walked over. “It’s a long story.”
Roz squatted down to pet her and the puppy immediately rolled onto her back and exposed her stomach. “Aw, I love her.”She scratched her gently. “Hey, speaking of neighbors, I’ve been meaning to come over to chat with you. Do you have a sec?”
The bands across my shoulders wrenched a centimeter tighter when I realized that she probably wanted to talk about Andrew. “Yeah, everything okay?”
“Yes and no.” She stood up and her face looked more “no” than “yes.” “I wanted to let you know that I’m moving out.”
“Roz! That is the worst newsever,” I exclaimed so loudly that Edith jumped.
There was no better neighbor than Roz. She was funny and kind, and generous with her almost-perfects, which meant that I often found bags of broken cookies hanging from my doorknob. And sometimes she cooked up batches of cheese biscuits for my students. In return I helped her load boxes when she was short-staffed, and had even done a few delivery runs for her.
She laughed. “That’s actually the good news. I need to scale up to a bigger space.”
