Read Online Learning to Stay by Erin Celello - Free Book Online Page A

copilot, banterer, judgment-free support. “Sure,” I say. “Sounds good.”
    Sondra and I arrive at the Fisher House and find that the inn is nearly full, and that we’ll need to share a room. It’s homey enough not to feel like a hotel room, but strange enough to leave the impression I’m a guest in someone else’s house. Our room has two full-size beds covered by blue and brown duvets and a brown love seat that folds out into another bed. As I begin to unpack, Sondra collapses onto the one farthest from the door and closes her eyes.
    By the time I finish freshening up, my stomach is protesting that it’s been fed only toast, eggs, and coffee all day. The smell of some indiscriminate food is wafting up from downstairs, which increases the insistent grumbling in my midsection.
    “Want to go see what’s cooking?” I ask Sondra.
    She doesn’t open her eyes. She has one hand laid across them like a 1940s starlet feigning fainting. “You go ahead,” she says. “Scope things out for me. Maybe I’m coming down with something. I’m going to lie down for a bit.”
    “Okay,” I say. I prop my suitcase against the end of the bed, pop it open, and since it doesn’t look like we’re venturing far tonight, swap my dress pants for jeans and my heels for slippers. I grab my workbag, turn on the desk light, and turn off the overhead lights on my way out the door.
    Fisher House has a full kitchen where people who have better cooking skills than I do can fix their own meals, and where well-wishing volunteers keep the refrigerator stocked with prepared dishes for guests who are too inept, busy, or stressed to fend for themselves. I fall firmly into the second category. A board in the foyer informs me that tonight’s selection is white chicken chili. This sounds as good as anything I could imagine.
    The kitchen is illuminated only by under-cabinet lights. In the refrigerator I find a small portion of chili in a Tupperware container on the “free-for-all” shelf. When I put the container directly into the microwave instead of into a bowl, I think of how Brad would say that I’m upping my chances of dying of cancer, but at the moment my hunger exceeds my energy for worrying about future disasters. I want to eat and I want to sleep, and in between those two activities I still have a bit of work to do. If cutting out a step gets me closer to accomplishing all of those things, I’m willing to take the minute increased risk of getting sick down the road.
    I eat standing up, like I often do at home. The chili goes down quickly and warms me from the inside out. Then I help myself to a Diet Coke and settle in the library to prepare a research memo one of the partners requested I turn in to him on Monday, as I was walking out the door this afternoon. I suspect it was punishment, made up on the spot, for the fact that I was leaving early on a Friday, but that only inspires me to work harder on it.
    When I return to the room, Sondra is fully asleep, though she has changed into pajamas and tied her hair back with a scarf. It’s been awhirlwind couple of weeks, chock-full of emotion and excitement and readjusting to new-old routines, and despite the nap I had in the car and the caffeine-laced Diet Coke I finished an hour ago, I am asleep, too, almost as soon as I crawl between the sheets.
    In the morning, hallway noise and bright light streaming in through our room’s window wake me. I look over, expecting to see Sondra still sleeping, but her bed is empty and the linens hardly look rumpled. She must have slept like the dead.
    Apparently, so did I, because it’s quarter to ten.
    I assume Sondra has gone to see Antony, and I have plenty of work yet to keep me busy until she returns. I hurry off to the shower so I can get ready and finish my work before she gets back. I’ve never been to the Mall of America, and I’ve been hoping all along that we might go this afternoon. I’m not usually much of a shopper and I haven’t yet