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Authors: Isabel Sharpe
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it. Hard enough hauling her own pain around without coping with kids who missed 62 Isabel
Sharpe
Daddy. Maybe that made her horribly selfish, but she didn’t see how grief left room for any other way to be.
“Ann?” A timid knock at her door.
“Yuh.” She dragged the syllable out and got herself all the way up to sitting, blinking painfully.
“It’s Cindy. Just wanted to make sure you heard the bell.”
“Damn hard to miss.”
“Oh. Well. We’ll see you at breakfast?”
“Right.” Breakfast. Christ. Maybe she should skip it.
Except they probably took roll and came after no-shows with a doctor. No, with antidepressants. No, a straitjacket.
Cindy’s footsteps mercifully receded. Ann let herself flop back, staring at the random pattern of brown knots in the pine ceiling.
Okay. She was here, she might as well deal with it. On the count of five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one and a half . . .
She sat up, swung her legs over the edge of the bed, feet resting on cool wood. Up. At ’em. Yee-haw.
The green shades sprang open at the first tug, eager to let in light. She pushed the window wider and bent to inhale piney morning air through the screen. At least today would bring a change from the deadening nonroutine of the last several months. Another deep breath, the sight of a sea gull soaring, and her head started clearing. Somewhat. Nice not being hung over too.
Well. That was all the perky bright side she had in her.
Showered in the tiny tinny stall, dressed in jeans and a coral sweater, made-up minimally, because why bother, she made her way to the “dining room,” a largish building next to the lodge, with a wide screened-in wraparound porch, red-checker-clothed picnic tables arranged around the perime-As Good As It Got
63
ter, about half full of women, with more arriving. Inside, the breakfast buffet, eggs, muffins, pancakes, bacon and sausage, all of which looked hot, fresh, and utterly nauseating to her churning stomach.
She picked up a tray and a plate—china, not plastic—real silverware, a thick soft paper napkin, and bypassed the hot food, nodding to the smiling plump woman standing behind the chafing dishes.
“Eggs? Bacon?”
“No. Thanks.” She dropped a piece of wheat bread into a toaster that could hold six slices, picked up tiny tubs of butter and Maine wild blueberry honey, and waited.
A petite blonde jostled by her, chattering with a friend, then turned with an apology and a warm smile Ann couldn’t seem to return. At work she had no problem meeting people or talking to strangers. Hell, it was her job, and she was damn good at it, or had been until this past year. But here . . . who was she? A widow, defined only by her pain and by her loss.
She didn’t want people to know that person. She had nothing to offer as that person. Hell, she didn’t even want to be that person.
She watched women fill their plates, feeling more isolated than she did in her familiar surroundings in Massachusetts, which were all now torturously notable for being without Paul.
So? No one was keeping her here. She could climb into her car and drive home again. Back to her parents’ house. Back to sleeping late, eating their food, watching their shows, drinking their liquor, scouring want ads and alumni directories for graduates of Brown with careers in information technology or sales who might help her get a job.
64 Isabel
Sharpe
Crap.
Toast popped and harvested, she headed for her primary fuel source: coffee. In mugs that held half what her gar-gantuan one did at home, the mug Paul bought after he accidentally swept her favorite off her computer table to its doom. He’d been as crestfallen as a boy, eager to make it right. One of the few circumstances in which his cynicism cracked and showed vulnerability. Too bad he hadn’t broken more of her favorite things in the year before he died. Maybe she could have gotten through . . .
Enough.
Feeling like the new kid in middle school,
Sharpe
Daddy. Maybe that made her horribly selfish, but she didn’t see how grief left room for any other way to be.
“Ann?” A timid knock at her door.
“Yuh.” She dragged the syllable out and got herself all the way up to sitting, blinking painfully.
“It’s Cindy. Just wanted to make sure you heard the bell.”
“Damn hard to miss.”
“Oh. Well. We’ll see you at breakfast?”
“Right.” Breakfast. Christ. Maybe she should skip it.
Except they probably took roll and came after no-shows with a doctor. No, with antidepressants. No, a straitjacket.
Cindy’s footsteps mercifully receded. Ann let herself flop back, staring at the random pattern of brown knots in the pine ceiling.
Okay. She was here, she might as well deal with it. On the count of five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one and a half . . .
She sat up, swung her legs over the edge of the bed, feet resting on cool wood. Up. At ’em. Yee-haw.
The green shades sprang open at the first tug, eager to let in light. She pushed the window wider and bent to inhale piney morning air through the screen. At least today would bring a change from the deadening nonroutine of the last several months. Another deep breath, the sight of a sea gull soaring, and her head started clearing. Somewhat. Nice not being hung over too.
Well. That was all the perky bright side she had in her.
Showered in the tiny tinny stall, dressed in jeans and a coral sweater, made-up minimally, because why bother, she made her way to the “dining room,” a largish building next to the lodge, with a wide screened-in wraparound porch, red-checker-clothed picnic tables arranged around the perime-As Good As It Got
63
ter, about half full of women, with more arriving. Inside, the breakfast buffet, eggs, muffins, pancakes, bacon and sausage, all of which looked hot, fresh, and utterly nauseating to her churning stomach.
She picked up a tray and a plate—china, not plastic—real silverware, a thick soft paper napkin, and bypassed the hot food, nodding to the smiling plump woman standing behind the chafing dishes.
“Eggs? Bacon?”
“No. Thanks.” She dropped a piece of wheat bread into a toaster that could hold six slices, picked up tiny tubs of butter and Maine wild blueberry honey, and waited.
A petite blonde jostled by her, chattering with a friend, then turned with an apology and a warm smile Ann couldn’t seem to return. At work she had no problem meeting people or talking to strangers. Hell, it was her job, and she was damn good at it, or had been until this past year. But here . . . who was she? A widow, defined only by her pain and by her loss.
She didn’t want people to know that person. She had nothing to offer as that person. Hell, she didn’t even want to be that person.
She watched women fill their plates, feeling more isolated than she did in her familiar surroundings in Massachusetts, which were all now torturously notable for being without Paul.
So? No one was keeping her here. She could climb into her car and drive home again. Back to her parents’ house. Back to sleeping late, eating their food, watching their shows, drinking their liquor, scouring want ads and alumni directories for graduates of Brown with careers in information technology or sales who might help her get a job.
64 Isabel
Sharpe
Crap.
Toast popped and harvested, she headed for her primary fuel source: coffee. In mugs that held half what her gar-gantuan one did at home, the mug Paul bought after he accidentally swept her favorite off her computer table to its doom. He’d been as crestfallen as a boy, eager to make it right. One of the few circumstances in which his cynicism cracked and showed vulnerability. Too bad he hadn’t broken more of her favorite things in the year before he died. Maybe she could have gotten through . . .
Enough.
Feeling like the new kid in middle school,
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