Chapter 1
I’ve mourned my husband twice. Once after the accident that took away the man I’d married. The second time when the stroke took away a man that I’d grown to love—the one who, up until he died, still held random shards of his original self.
Twice. But I’d never had time to mourn the loss of myself until now. How many lives do we go through in the course of one? By my count, I’d had three so far and was beginning my fourth. This fourth, it was the one that scared me the most, the one I felt most unprepared to face. My fourth life—my new life, where there were no clear markers to help me decide my path or the course of my future.
“What do you think I can get for it?” I asked Carson. The words lodged in my throat like boulders that needed to be jackhammered before rising to the surface.
Our home. No, it was my home now. Still, the best memories I had were of when it was ours. Every beam and post held a story. They were imbedded deep into the plaster, reminding me of the past—both good and bad. I hated to sell this place.
Maybe it was for the best. The thought of remaining in this house for the rest of my life, waking every morning alone to the same walls that had seen so much…. Let someone else take my place here, meld their own experiences with the thirty-five years of our own.
Though the thought of living somewhere else was just as depressing. More so, actually. Some little apartment where I could hear the footsteps of the tenant upstairs? Escaping the past and launching myself into a new life in a tiny, inexpensive apartment wasn’t something I relished. I didn’t want to leave. I wasn’t ready. But there was a mortgage, and I was painfully aware that I couldn’t make the payments—at least not for long. With my new job, I might be able to manage a few months, but after that I’d be on the path to foreclosure. Better for me to list it now and leave with my chin up than be pried from my beloved home by sheriff’s deputies and an eviction notice—which would be even more humiliating because I knew those sheriff’s deputies. Sell. Like a butterfly emerging from my cocoon, fly free and leave it all behind. And fly away to some cheap, dingy one-bedroom that reeked of old smoke and onions.
I was about to sell my home—our home. Lord, how could I ever sell our home?
“Are you sure, Kay?”
Carson had been my friend for decades. The freelance research work that he’d thrown my way over the last ten years had saved me. He’d kept me sane by asking me to do property title searches as well as find copies of deeds, and other documents buried under mounds of courthouse files. Our friendship was more than just the occasional odd bit of work, though. We’d been buddies in college, but after graduation, when we’d gone on to careers and marriage, our camaraderie had turned into more of a couple’s friendship with dining out, wine festivals, and charity fundraisers. It was friends like Carson that I cherished—the ones who hadn’t abandoned me when I had needed their support the most. His wife, Maggie, had kept me going with casseroles while Carson had provided moral support through those dark years.
“No, I’m not sure. I don’t want to leave just yet, but I can’t afford to stay here.” I winced, hating to tell Carson the sordid details of my finances. “The insurance policy took care of the funeral and the remaining medical bills, but I can’t swing the mortgage on my salary.”
The house had once been paid off, but after the accident, we’d needed to take out a mortgage to pay the medical bills, then a second mortgage to help pay the first. Then the 401k had been gobbled up with early withdrawals. I was in so far over my head that I doubted I’d clear anything after the sale, even with Carson kindly waiving his seller’s commission.
“Can you take in some roommates? One or two would cover the mortgage and give you time to think about what you want to do. I hate to see you sell this place, Kay. It’s beautiful. It’s the house you and Eli had always dreamed of having, the one you both wanted to grow old in.”
It had been our dream house—a huge three-story Victorian on a quiet street. I’d fallen in love for the second time in my life the day I saw it. The gingerbread trim, porches, thick wooden baseboards and coffered ceilings—it was magical. It was also too big for two people. We’d intended to fill it with children, but life took another turn and five of the six bedrooms had remained empty. It was too big for two people, and it was definitely too big for one, but I wasn’t sure I could expose my raw emotions and precious memories to a roommate who would leave dirty dishes in the sink and muddy shoes on the foyer carpet.
“Look, I know someone who is searching for a place. It’s very hush-hush, so I don’t want to name any names unless you’re interested. He’s getting ready to go through a messy divorce and needs somewhere that doesn’t look like a bachelor pad so he can push for fifty-fifty custody.”
“Please tell me he’s not one of the people in that sex scandal?”
That would be the sort of thing that led to a messy divorce. It seemed a Madam—and I mean that with a capital ‘M’—had gotten herself arrested earlier this week. Not a big deal unless you considered that Locust Point was a tiny town. That sort of thing would have even been shocking in nearby Milford, but here in Locust Point where everyone knew everyone, it was the topic of every conversation. Caryn Swanson. Attractive, immaculately groomed, party-and-wedding-planner Caryn Swanson. What a scandal.
If having a woman you were likely to run into at the grocery store turn out to be a Madam wasn’t enough, there was the juicy speculation on who her clients were. And a Madam meant there were prostitutes. Prostitutes. In Locust Point. We were all eyeing each other, wondering who had been doing a bit of side work with Caryn. But so far the woman kept her lips tightly sealed. No named prostitutes. No incriminating black book. Just a resounding claim of innocence from her lawyer. I had no doubt those coral-pink lips would become unsealed once a plea bargain was on the table.
A Madam in Locust Point meant johns in Locust Point, and I didn’t like the idea of having a man who might have solicited prostitutes living in my house.
Carson laughed. In fact, he laughed until I thought he might pass out. “Uh, no. I’m not saying this guy is beyond having an affair—I’m not privy to the details of his divorce. But there’s no way that he’s getting his loving from prostitutes. No way.”
I was willing to take Carson’s word for it. But beyond having a morally bankrupt sex-crazed guy living with me, I had other objections. “He has kids? I’d probably be okay with the occasional overnight, but fifty-fifty custody?”
I hadn’t been around kids often in the last ten years, and really not much before that. Our friends tended to be childless, or the type who got babysitters when we all went out to eat.
“They’re not infants, Kay. His kids are teens. They’ll probably play loud music and spill chips all over their rooms, but you wouldn’t have to deal with crying babies, and at most they’d only be here half the time. This place is huge. It’s not like you don’t have the space. Plus, he’s looking for a two-year lease. It would give you money to help with the mortgage, and time to think about what you want to do.”
With the rest of my life. It was the unspoken finish to his speech. I didn’t care about loud music or snack foods. There wasn’t anything two teens could do that two hundred years of families hadn’t already done to this house. It was built for more than one person, but could I cope with sharing my home with three strangers after so many years of just Eli and me?
From the corner of my eye I saw a shadow that moved from the back of the kitchen toward the fridge. When I turned to see what it was, the shadow disappeared and I found myself looking at a magnet. It was a picture taken over a decade ago in Costa Rica. Me, waist deep in azure water, pristine white sand in front and a lofty forest-green mountain peak behind. I’m holding some frozen, umbrella-accented drink in the photo and laughing, because it was before the accident. It was before… everything.
The picture blurred, and I wasn’t sure if it was the shadow this time, or tears.
I couldn’t leave this house. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready. And if that meant I had to put up with some philandering, soon-to-be divorced guy and his two Dorito-eating kids, then so be it. “Thanks, Carson. Please give him my number.”
He smiled. “I’ll do more than that. Are you free this afternoon? I’ll have him come by and meet you.”
This was all moving too fast, but that was the way everything had seemed since the funeral. Actually even during the funeral. While I felt as if I were frozen in place, afraid to take a step, the world rushed past me at breakneck speed.
“I have an eye appointment and a few errands. Maybe tonight, or late afternoon? I should be home by three.”
Carson typed into his phone. “I’ll arrange it. How are your eyes doing? Everything okay?”
Another shadow moved at the edge of my vision. This time I ignored it. “Just a checkup.”
It was just a checkup, and I wasn’t about to tell anyone except my ophthalmologist about the shadows, the movement that I saw in my peripheral vision. I didn’t want anyone thinking I was going crazy. I wasn’t. I was sure these shadowy figures were just a temporary effect of my cataract surgery, like the weird sparkly light that my friend Daisy told me reflected off the new lenses.
Cataracts, and me just sixty years old. At least I’d been able to scrounge up the money for the surgery. It made things tighter financially, but I’d rather live in a cardboard box on the street than live with the increasingly dark blur of my sight. There were crosses in life I was strong enough to bear, but losing my eyesight wasn’t one of them.
Carson’s phone beeped, and he glanced down at the screen. “Okay. We’re all set. He’ll be here at four.”
I felt a lump in my chest at the thought. A stranger. Living in my house. And two teenagers. Maybe I’d luck out and he’d hate the place. Although I wasn’t sure which option was worse, losing my beloved home, the home that Eli and I had made together, and living in an apartment, or having a stranger in my house every night.
A stranger. I didn’t even know who this guy was, if he was a serial killer, or a rapist. A messy divorce didn’t give me any confidence that my prospective roomie was an upstanding citizen. I know that was horribly judgmental of me, but as someone who had stuck by her husband through sickness and health, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of annoyance at people who didn’t seem to view their marriage vows with the same dedication that I had.
“So, who is this man?” I asked, eyeing my watch. I needed to get going or I’d be late for my eye appointment.
“Judge Beck,” Carson said with all the solemn respect of a man announcing the presence of our Lord and Savior. “Judge Nathanial Beck.”
Chapter 2
“F E L O P Z D.”
“Very nice, Mrs. Carrera.”
The doctor smiled at me as if I were a particularly clever child, then proceeded to flash his hand-held light thingy back and forth across each eye.
“The lens attachments look good. Everything has healed nicely.” He sat back on his rolling stool, looking for a few seconds as if he had a halo while my eyes adjusted to the room’s dim light.
For all I knew, he probably did have a halo. Doctor Berkowitz was a fit man who wore his receding hair trimmed short and had an affinity for t-shirts with quirky sayings on them. Today’s shirt proclaimed him to be a Browncoat—whatever that was. He was about my age with warm, friendly eyes in a face whose lines told me he’d spent a lot of his life smiling. Dr. Berkowitz was the type of guy that twenty years ago would have made my heart rate increase, but instead I felt nothing. Zip. Nada. Eli and I had always joked that marriage didn’t mean you suddenly went blind. Nor did it mean that ogling an attractive jogger or bartender was a prelude to infidelity. It was normal to see the beauty in other humans around you, and normal to know that the person you married was the only one who truly lit your fire.
But Eli was gone, and the last ten years of our marriage had been challenging. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t see Doctor Berkowitz as an attractive, eligible man, it was that I couldn’t see myself as an attractive, eligible woman anymore. I didn’t even recognize the face I saw in the mirror or the body I lathered up in the shower as mine. How had I wound up a young woman in an old body?
How had I wound up a numb robot in an old body?
Not that there was anything beyond professional friendliness in Doctor Berkowitz’s demeanor to suggest that he might find me attractive. Not that there had been anything in anyone’s demeanor in the last ten years to suggest they might find me attractive. I didn’t want another man. I wasn’t looking for a replacement for Eli or even a weird one-night-stand. It just would be nice if someone would see me as more than an old lady, a childless widow, as more than some androgynous robot. With cataracts. Who saw shadows out of the corner of her eye.
When did I get so old that a good-looking doctor did nothing for me? When did I get so old that a good-looking doctor wasn’t eyeing me up with a spark of interest in his own eyes? One day I was looking at forty in the mirror, and the next greeting my sixtieth birthday with surprise. Everything in between was a blur of work, bills, and doctors—endless, endless streams of doctors.
“…floaters. Quite common after surgery, especially in patients of your age.”
“Huh?”
I’d not been paying attention. I was sure the doctor thought I had some kind of early-onset dementia, even though he smiled kindly and repeated himself. He wasn’t any younger than me. Still, sitting in this reclining chair in the tiny room, I felt ancient.
“So these floaters will go away? I’m not going to spend the rest of my life seeing shadows creeping around?”
It was irritating. In a way, it was more irritating than the cataracts had been. Every time I tried to focus on the shadows, they flitted out of sight. Sometimes they remained, moving to stay at the corner of my vision as if they were trying to get my attention but didn’t want me to look directly at them.
“Individuals prone to cataracts are sometimes prone to floaters, so while the condition might resolve somewhat as your eyes continue to heal, you may continue to have them. Eventually, you’ll get used to the dark spots and will no longer notice them.”
“They’re not spots,” I argued. Doctors didn’t intimidate me as they used to, and I’d found that it was important to properly articulate symptoms. “They’re elongated, with protuberances. They look like human shadows, only there’s no one casting them.”
Doctor Berkowitz patted me on the back of my hand. I wondered if I’d be offered a lollypop upon completion of the appointment. Or perhaps a bottle of prune juice.
“Well, the floaters can take on an oblong shape.”
I was subjected to a long monologue about vitreous fluid, then urged to contact him immediately if I began seeing flashes of light, or the floaters appeared as groups. Lovely. Basically, they might resolve over time, or they might not. I’d traded horrible night vision and fading eyesight for floaters, and I’d paid over six thousand dollars for the privilege.
Six thousand dollars I could scant afford. I still caught my breath thinking about it, but after spending over ten years neglecting my own health, I’d needed to do this. I’d been given this new chapter in the autumn of my life. It was like breaking the water’s surface for a gasp of air after nearly drowning. My eyesight had been my reward for survival.
“…avoid bright light. Wear sunglasses when you go out, and limit computer usage.”
Nope. I mean, I was fine with the sunglasses thing, but there was no way I was giving up my internet. Funny cat videos had become a highlight of my evenings.
And how sad was that? I was sixty, not ninety. Sheesh.
I left the genial Dr. Berkowitz, eyes properly shielded from the noon sunlight by my spanking new drug store sunglasses. A shadow moved from the corner of the building, falling in behind me off to the right. I sighed in resignation, mentally welcoming the new addition to my life. At least I could read, drive at night, and knit. Actually, I couldn’t knit. I should really take up knitting. That seemed to be an appropriate activity for a woman my age. I envisioned myself rocking on my front porch, brightly colored yarn spilling from my lap as two needles clacked away. That would be fun. I could make scarves to give the neighbors for Christmas, and perhaps knit socks to send the troops overseas, or baby hats for the hospital. Yeah. Knitting.
“Come on, Mr. Floater. We’ve got to run to MegaMart, then meet our potential new roomie at four. After that we’ve got boxes in the attic to go through. If you’re good, maybe I’ll let you pick the movie tonight.”
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