Then I took off my navy dress.
I changed into a soft house dress, put water on for tea, and pulled a book off the shelf that I had meant to start months ago. I never read past the first page. I just sat in my chair with a mug warming my hands, listening to the rain and the grandfather clock, and feeling something I had not felt in years.
Not joy.
Not yet.
But relief.
The bank opened at nine. I was in the parking lot at eight-thirty-eight.
I had slept deeply for the first time in months. No sleeping pill. No waking at three in the morning rehearsing other people’s problems like they were prayer requests. When I looked in the bathroom mirror before leaving the house, I still saw an old woman. But I also saw a woman who had finally stopped asking permission to be hurt.
Linda Howard had been with the bank for longer than some marriages last. James and I had worked with her for years. She knew where every investment had come from, knew when we sold the hardware supply business, knew when James got sick, knew the exact month I started adding Garrett as an authorized helper “for convenience” after I had that dizzy spell one summer.