“I hired a receptionist today for my medical practice—my successful medical practice in a town that I am growing surprisingly fond of. That kind of sounds like someone who has her life together, doesn’t it?”
“Aww.” Maya slung an arm around her shoulder.
“Mind you, I also live in a tiny pink room and appear to have lost custody of my dog to my baby daddy who I’m maybe kind of estranged from for reasons unknown.”
“Well, one,” Maya said, “you can’t have everything. I don’t think living in a tiny pink room and having your life together are mutually exclusive. And two, um, hello? Did you just refer to Jake as your baby daddy?”
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Does that mean what I think it means?” Maya’s voice was rising.
Nora took a deep breath. “It does. I decided this morning.”
She’d known it all along, though, hadn’t she? Even as she’d allowed her conscious, scientific mind to go through a rational decision-making process, somewhere inside she had known from the moment she’d seen that plus sign. It wasn’t that she’d gone all gaga-gooey maternal. Not at all. She could only trust that that—or enough of that to get the job done—would come later. Maybe it was just that she was so fresh off a death that she couldn’t, ultimately, let herself get too fussed over timing.
The timing was bad. There was no question.
But would it be better in a year? In three years?
She had thought of Wynd and her alpacas. When the universe gives you what you want, are you going to complain that it’s too early? Those had been her exact words.
And Nora knew right now, better and more viscerally than she’d ever known before, that nothing was guaranteed. People got sick and stopped recognizing you. People died.
Time went fast.
“Oh my God!” Maya was squealing and jumping up and down. “Oh my God! You’re really going to do it?”
“I’m going to do it.” Nora’s voice was shaky, but her intentions were not. “I have no idea how, but I’m going to do it. I also decided that…”
Oh, man. Why was this part so hard? Probably because she felt terrible about leaving Erin in the lurch. She wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.
“What?” Eve said gently.
“I’m going to do it here. I’m going to stay.”
The girls started shrieking—and Nora started panicking.
It wasn’t that she didn’t feel sure in her decisions. She would miss Toronto and her family something terrible. But she had a sweet life here. As her own boss, she had flexibility. And she was betting the network of elders could be guilted into babysitting.
But more than that, she wanted her kid to grow up with access to its dad—assuming its dad wanted to be accessed. She wanted her kid to grow up by the lake.
Still, despite her elemental certainty that she’d chosen the right path, the how of it made her feel like hyperventilating when she thought about it too hard. How was she possibly going to do this?
“We’ll help you.” As if she had heard Nora’s unarticulated fears, Eve laid a hand on her arm, and Nora was overcome anew with gratitude for her friends. This phase of her life was supposed to be about her career, her finances—about getting over Rufus. She was beginning to see, though, that the unplanned dividend of her big move was these women.
“Totally!” Maya agreed. “We both have flexible jobs. And you know that whole it-takes-a-village saying? This town may have its drawbacks, but it’s your village, lady.”
“It’s my village,” Nora echoed. That felt right. That helped tamp down the fear.
“Yeah, this town really stepped in when Sawyer was younger, to help him with Clara,” Eve said.
“You know who helped him a lot?” Maya said, looking at something over Nora’s shoulder. “The Ramsey family. Jake.” She lowered her voice. “Who is on his way over here right now.”
Nora’s stomach dropped as she twisted around to confirm that Jake was indeed approaching, along with Sawyer. “Don’t say anything!”
“Of course not,” Eve whispered.
“Even I’m not that much of a drama queen,” Maya said.
“Hey,” Sawyer said as they approached. Jake, of course, did not say anything. “Making wishes?”
“Not yet.” Maya held up a small basket that contained their flowers.
Everyone was silent, the women no doubt because they were all—Nora included—processing Nora’s big news and the men probably because the women were being so weird.
“Plotting something, then?”
Sawyer was teasing, but when Maya said, quickly, “No! Why would you say that?” more