And yet, it wasn’t enough. Not for his bosses, who always wanted more, wanted it faster, wanted it better. They didn’t careif he was chained to his desk late into the evening, or if he came in for more weekends than he stayed home.
He’d known that when he was getting started, he would be expected to keep up a swift pace. But he had left behind “getting started” many years ago. He would be forty this year, after all. He wasn’t some fresh-faced kid straight out of college.
But the pace hadn’t relented. Not the tiniest bit.
With a groan, he rolled over until he was sitting more comfortably. Lying on his couch after a long day was one thing, but lying on hisfacewas a bit more tragic than he wanted to be.
The movement, slight though it was, seemed to remind his body that it had needs, however. His stomach let out a loud grumble.
Oh, right. He’d worked through lunch… again.
But he still felt too tired to get up and actually cook himself dinner…
Again.
Something had to change. He didn’t know what, though.
And he probably wouldn’t figure it out if his body didn’t get any fuel. With an even louder groan, he pushed himself to sitting, then rested his hands on his knees for a moment before managing to get all the way to his feet.
He rubbed his hands over his face. It felt like there was simply no… joy in things recently. Even simple things felt like chores. Even the things he liked.
He slogged his way through making a ham sandwich. Normally, he liked mustard and crisp green lettuce with his ham, but he hadn’t been to the grocery store recently enough, so his lettuce had gotten soggy and sad. And, once he gave up on that element, adding the mustard seemed like an unnecessary amount of work. The sandwich would already be mediocre. Might as well embrace it.
He had just chased down the bite of sandwich with a swig of Coke when his phone rang. Even through the persistent haze of melancholy that had been weighing on him, he felt a spark of happiness.
It was his sister, Eleanor.
“Ellie, hey,” he said, scooping up the phone and pressingacceptimmediately.
“Oh good, I’m glad I caught you!” His sister’s voice was warm across the line. “I was worried I’d interrupt you while you were working.”
Eleanor’s words were kindly meant, but they caused a pang to go through him. It was seven o’clock in the evening in California, which meant it would be after ten at night where his sister lived in Massachusetts. She had probably stayed up late to call him… and it was entirely reasonable that she might have thought he would still be working. He often was, at this time of night.
“Nope, just home having dinner,” he said dully.
“Uh oh,” she said. “That doesn’t sound good. Too long since you’ve gone grocery shopping again?”
"My lettuce was sad,” he confessed.
“Oh no!” she cried with a laugh. “Nothing is worse than sad lettuce!”
Despite everything, he felt a smile beginning to spread across his face.
“Yeah, there’s natural disasters, tragedies, and then bad lettuce. The worst incidents that can befall a man.”
Laughing with his sister felt good. He found himself suddenly eager to have more insight into Eleanor’s life, which had been wonderful in the past year. Eleanor had spent too long in her marriage which, although not outright awful, had been less joyful than his sister deserved. Ever since moving to the EastCoast and starting work on her bookshop, though, Eleanor had been granted all the joy in the world.
He loved that she had such happiness. He hoped hearing about it would let just a little bit of that happiness spill over into his life too.
“Tell me how things are going, sis,” he said. “How’s the store? How’s that man of yours?”
To his complete and utter delight, because a man never really outgrew being the little brother who loved to badger his sister, Eleanor laughed.
Because of that same little brother instinct, he commented on it.
“The laugh! So, I guess that means things are going well.”
“They really are,” Eleanor said with a happy sigh. “Garrett has been the best through this whole bookstore opening craziness.”
