Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 85399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I pick up the cantaloupe again and weigh it in my palm.
Her words settle on my soul. I might not be in the twilight of my life just yet, but I understand exactly what she means.
“What’s going on, honey?” she asks.
“Nothing.” I set the fruit on top of the others. “I was just thinking about how I get what you’re saying about appreciating time. That’s been a big thing for me recently.”
She places a bundle of tomatoes in the last bag and watches me curiously. But instead of elaborating, I wander around the front of the store.
My face is hot and my heart beats hard. The only person I’ve talked about this with is Billie. It’s a relief to open the topic with Mrs. Shaw, but it also feels like I’m betraying my family.
“Do you want to know something funny?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“Ava and I pulled out a bunch of old VHS tapes from years ago. She’d never seen one before and thought it was the neatest thing she ever did see.” She chuckles. “Anyway, we sat down and watched some of them—old birthdays and family reunions, that sort of thing. And it made me think about how much I’ve changed over the years. I was this little chaste thing when I married Frank, when I was barely eighteen. Then, in my twenties, I started having babies. I was really a baby myself. Oh, those twenties were so hard.”
“I can relate.”
“I’m sure you can.” She smiles. “But then came my thirties—my sexual awakening. The kids were out of diapers and could wake up and not run into the road anymore, and I had a minute to take a breath. Then came my forties. That was probably my favorite decade. The hardest in some ways because the kids moved out, and it was just Frank and me at home, really for the first time since we’d been married. It was scary having all that time on my hands but also powerful. And that’s what I found in my fifties. My power. And, also, my purpose.”
“Can I borrow some of that knowledge? Please?”
She hands me my card. “You’ll find yours. I promise. And one day, you’ll be my age and you’ll look back on all the decades of your life—the easy ones, the hard ones, too—and you’ll realize it was just a beautiful journey. You weren’t meant to be the young, beautiful version of yourself with purpose and power at the same time. Can you imagine that mess?”
I laugh.
“Really, Lauren, you’re the same person the whole time. Just the same person with different experiences. You weren’t born to stay static. That was never the plan.”
I slide my card in my pocket and lift the bags off the counter. A thought prickles the back of my brain.
“Did Frank change like that, Mrs. Shaw?”
Her smile softens. “Of course he did, honey. He was a human being.”
I regrip the bags, the paper handles slipping against my sweaty palms.
“Frank and I had our biggest challenges when one of us was growing or changing. They were some of the watershed moments of our marriage.”
“How did you get through them?”
She chuckles. “Sometimes by the skin of our teeth.”
The door swings open. A man who bought a cabin by the lake a few years ago comes in. After a quick wave to us, he heads for the firewood bundles.
“Honestly, Lauren, marriage is hard. Well, I’m sure you know that. It’s the hardest thing you can do. The thing that got us through them was simple—we wanted to get through them. It’s amazing how far that one little thing goes.”
Her words roll around my brain. “That makes sense.”
“Mrs. Shaw—how much are these again? I don’t see a sign,” the man says from the back of the store.
“Go. I’ll see you soon,” I say.
“I’ll send Ava up with your meat as soon as she gets back.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem, honey,” she says as she rounds the corner of the counter.
I push open the door and make my way into the warm summer sun. The two bags are heavy, but not nearly as heavy as the thoughts in my mind.
Mrs. Shaw’s perspective on marriage, on life—it’s so different from Billie’s. Because Mrs. Shaw’s words truly resonate with the deepest parts of my soul. I’ve clung to my marriage because I made vows and promises that I would.
But it feels like it’s been a one-sided endeavor most of the time. What about the vows and promises Jack made too?
“The thing that got us through them was simple—we wanted to get through them. It’s amazing how far that one little thing goes.”
Is it really that simple?
Is that the little thing that’s missing from our marriage?
CHAPTER TEN
JACK
The rag swipes down the hinges, soaking up the excess lubricant.
“Let’s give it a try, Snaps,” I say.
The door opens and closes without a squeak. The puppy cocks his head to the side before barking at the screen. I pat him on the head as I stand.