1
WILLIAM
I RUMMAGED THROUGH THE GARAGE AS QUIETLY AS I COULD, TRYING TO FIND THE TOOLS I NEEDED. I’D
slept for shit last night and decided shortly after dawn was as good a time as any to work on
Genevieve’s flower beds. Now that the ground had thawed, I knew she’d want to start planting. Hell,
it was all she had talked about since late last fall when she’d so proudly closed on her first home,
complete with an apartment over the garage for her favorite brother.
None of my buddies understood my excitement over such mundane tasks. The year before I retired
from the Army, helping make my sister’s life easier had been all I’d talked about. They teased me
about dreaming of being a housewife after retirement and said I should at least find myself a husband,
so I had a willing body at my disposal.
I thought about them as I upturned the soil along the front of the house. What would they think if
they could see me now? Would they give me shit for still living so simply? I hadn’t done a good job
of keeping in touch; at the time, I’d needed a clean break from the military life so I could focus on my
family for a change. They had been placed on the back burner for twenty years while I busted my ass
to turn my childhood dreams into reality. And now look at me: I answered to no one, lived over my
sister’s garage so I wasn’t tied down, and she could finally take it easy for a change. What would
seem like a boring life to some was a dream to me.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
I startled, flinging dirt all over the wood planks of the porch. I added sweeping to my to-do list
for the day. “Jesus, Vivvie, you know better than to sneak up on me.”
“And you know better than to be out here digging around at ass o’clock in the morning, yet here
we are,” she shot back. I leaned against the shovel handle, taking a moment to really look at her. She
definitely looked more relaxed than she had when I’d first landed on her doorstep two years ago. I
wasn’t sure if that was because of the help she’d desperately needed and finally had, or the fact her
son was finally out of his rebellious teen phase. “Have you even had breakfast yet?”
I wasn’t going to tell her I hadn’t. She had this misguided notion that I’d become a robot during
my time in the military and was incapable of taking care of myself. I continued turning the dirt,
satisfied as it went from a packed patch of grayish brown to loose, rich soil. I couldn’t wait until we
went to the garden store and the front of the house came to life.
