“Exactly. Right now. This second. What makes you happy?”
“My kids,” I say without a moment’s hesitation. “Even if they frustrate me sometimes.”
She grins. “Good. They get to stay.”
I chuckle despite myself. “They’ll be thrilled.”
“What else?”
I shake my head, searching my brain for something else. But nothing comes.
“If you had a gratitude journal, what would you write in it?” she prods.
“A gratitude journal?”
“I write in mine every night and come up with three things I’m grateful for.”
“Don’t you run out?” I ask, unsure if I’d be able to come up with three things to be grateful for total, let alone three things every day.
“No,” she says. “Sometimes I repeat things because I’m feeling grateful for them again. It’s not about novelty. It’s about choosing to be grateful for the things in my life instead of wishing for something else. So your kids are one. What else?”
“My nanny,” I say before I can stop myself. “I’m definitely grateful for her.”
The air shifts, her eyes landing on mine. It probably only lasts a matter of seconds, but it feels like an eternity as her gaze holds mine, my admission hanging between us.
“I spark joy. Phew,” she says around a nervous laugh, pretending to wipe sweat from her brow. “Guess I can keep my job for another day.”
“I don’t think it’s possible for younotto spark joy in someone, Rowan.”
She smiles, a blush blooming across her cheeks.
I shouldn’t keep saying things like this. She’s my nanny.
Myemployee.
But between the scotch, the anniversary, and Jude’s voice echoing in my head, I find myself admitting things I shouldn’t.
“One more,” she says softly.
I part my lips, about to say my family.
“And it can’t be a person,” she adds, as if sensing what I’m about to say.
I snap my mouth shut and stare ahead. “I don’t think there is anything else,” I say with a self-deprecating laugh.
It’s a bit of a rude awakening to learn there’snothing else in my life that makes me happy. Nothing else I’m grateful for.
“What about your job?” she suggests. “Don’t you enjoy what you do?”
“I…did.”
“Did?”
“In Chicago. The ER. I loved it. The chaos. The pace. Never knowing what would come through those doors.”
“It seems like a big change between a Chicago emergency room to a small town family medical practice.”
“You have no idea.”
