How can you have someone to share anything with when all you do is work, Katie?
I tried to ignore that thought. I knew the inner voice was right, but I didn’t know how to change things. I loved my job and had no intention of ever giving it up. But how long could I keep going like this? How long could I come home to solitude?
Forever?
I shuddered at the thought.
Why couldn’t I be the woman I was when I first started working at the El Cartana? I hadn’t wanted a partner then. Hell, I hadn’t even really wanted children then. But now things had changed. I had changed. The desire to be a mother was white hot and strong. Seeing children was torture. Seeing what I wanted but could never have was cruel punishment, and sometimes I caught myself wondering what I’d done to deserve it.
The answer was nothing. I’d done nothing.
Sometimes that was just how life was. Unfair.
I sighed and left the patio in favor of my comfortable sofa and a W. Parker book. The words on the page pulled me in and distracted me from my thoughts.
At least I had my brother’s baby shower to look forward to coming up. Even though it would be torturous, I could still find it in my heart to be happy for him and Hailey. They deserved this. The fact that I wanted it for myself and couldn’t have it didn’t change that.
Being an auntie was better than nothing, wasn’t it?
Chapter 5
Peter
The little cabin was cozy and comfortable at night. Darkness had fallen hours ago, and a gentle breeze outside rustled leaves and branches, creating a chorus of sounds that immersed me completely in nature. I lit a couple of candles I found in the cupboards in the kitchen, made myself dinner, and ate at the kitchen table, which wobbled from side to side on legs of different lengths.
I added it as a task to my never-ending list of things to fix in this place.
After my meal, I washed my dishes in the sink. There was no dishwasher in a place as quaint and simple as this, and I liked the routines I was establishing. Getting back to basics and simpler habits was exactly what my soul needed.
Your soul? I thought, mocking myself. Your soul doesn’t need shit. You just needed to get out of LA.
It was true, of course. I’d lost track of who I was and what I wanted amongst the sea of chaos that was that city. I’d given everything I had to my job and to my father, whose ailing health had become my number-one concern over the last five years. My brother had been content to let me handle everything from doctors’ appointments, medication costs, insurance follow-ups, and meals for my father, who was no longer able to take care of himself, let alone cook.
I didn’t regret being consumed by the end of my father’s life. I just regretted how lost it all made me feel.
What did I want for myself? What did I need? What didn’t I need?
Those were all questions I didn’t have the answers to. But this place felt like redemption. I could peel back the layers here. I could sit in the quiet and the peace and figure out what my next steps were. I could heal my mind as well as my body without the steady demand of people who needed things from me.
I set the dishes on the mat to dry on the counter and spent the next hour with a book on the sofa with obnoxiously loud springs. By ten o’clock, I was tired, so I brushed my teeth and climbed into bed. It too creaked like it was going to collapse beneath me. I worried that I might fall right through to the floorboards, bed and all, in the middle of the night.
It wouldn’t be an ideal way to wake up.
But I couldn’t fix it all at once. I’d have to move slowly and strategically.
There was always tomorrow.
I drifted off and was visited by the three young women from the market in my dreams. Only this time, I was the one calling the shots, not evading their attempts to take me home with them.
I woke to the distinct sound of muffled laughter outside.
My eyes fluttered open and I stared at the ceiling of exposed rafters above. I breathed softly, ears straining, and listened.