Page 76 of Waiting for Gilbert

CORDELIA

TEN MONTHS LATER

“That’s quite the list, Cordy. Let’s see if we can’t pare it down a little.”

“Hardly! It’s all important.” I shake the notebook in front of the laptop camera.

“Very much so. Your life is full to the brim. Obviously, you’ve had a great week. But I need you to remember, the higher your highs?—”

“The lower my lows. Yes, so you’ve said, yet when I’m feeling this way it doesn’t make any logical sense to stop it. If the train’s on the right track, why slow it down?”

My counselor shakes her head with a huge smile on her face. “Because trains running at that speed are doomed to crash or run out of coal. Use up all the coal, and you’ll have a hard time getting up the next hill.”

She’s probably right. I love her to pieces, but I’ve got a lot of fight left in me today. “The track is clear! Straight ahead. Choo-choo! Samantha, Samantha. Listen. I’ll just get through this next week and then I’ll rest.”

Samantha yanks a rubber band from her wrist and flings it toward me. It flies somewhere behind her camera. “No. That’s who you were before you hired me. That’s the kind of thinking that lands you in bed when you don’t want to be there. You have to make time to rest, or your body will rest all on its own. It won’t pick a convenient time for you. Go through that list again. Let me hear it.”

I raise my day book and clear my throat. “A thousand words on Royce’s fried apples by Monday. Bake cookies with Lisa. Call the guests who didn’t RSVP for Mark’s engagement party. Schedule two more reels for Hadley Strings and draft the newsletter. Go through the photos from last night’s gig and edit five for a post. Send the final tour schedule to the printer. Finish packing for the weekend?—”

“Ah, that one. Do that one first.”

“But Gil and I don’t leave until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Are you paying me to help you, or do you like throwing your money away?”

“Lands to the living, Samantha, you’re a tyrant. Fine.”

“You’ve got this. I’d love to keep talking, but it’s about time to sign off. Chin up. If you get overwhelmed next week, stop and name the emotion. ‘I’m feeling XYZ because ABC.’ And it’s okay to feel what you’re feeling. Listen to what that emotion is trying to tell you, but you mustn’t stay there. Then you’re going to speak out loud and write down the truth. ‘The truth is I am capable of this task because I’ve done it before, because I can ask for help, because I can learn new things, because I’m a woman of my word…’ Look at the facts of the matter, name the truth, and then back it up with evidence. The whole truth is that Cordelia Jane Conner is chosen by God. She has direct access?—”

I whisper with Samantha the truth she speaks over me every week. “I have direct access to the Creator of the universe. I am holy, set apart, and beloved. I am the Lord’s.”

“Amen.” Gilbert’s warm voice alerts me to his presence before his arms circle me in my desk chair. “Hi, Samantha. Anything I need to know?”

“Hello, Gilbert. She needs a body double until she’s packed for the weekend. She’s going to do that right now.”

“Got it.” He squeezes me once and kisses my temple. “I’ll grab us a packing snack.”

Samantha waves through the laptop screen. “Bye for now.”

I stare at my list of to-dos and feel the stress building against the onslaught of responsibility. Breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe. It’s fine. I got this. Under the last item I scribble another bullet point with my new favorite sentence.

Cordelia Conner is chosen.

I smile. The words are like a high five, fist pump, and victory dance smashed into a motivational sandwich.

“Babe!” Gilbert calls from our downstairs kitchen in the big house. “Cam just called. I invited him for dinner.”

I chuckle. Of course he did. As soon as we were married, we let Cameron have the cottage. Turns out Cam is an extremely talented graphic designer, and John and I put him to work creating graphics for the band.

John’s—well,our—website sells merchandise now. Shirts, hoodies, hats, stickers. We have digital tracks for sale with folk songs and contemporary hits, and the boys are wrapping up a new Christmas album for the next season. The secret sauce that first got us rolling? Nursing homes. Yep. I stepped in as manager an hour after our first kiss and booked Hadley Strings at over a hundred nursing homes by the end of February.

With my endless supply of ideas, John’s ability to get things done, Cameron’s graphics for marketing and merchandise, Gilbert’s musical genius—and dashing smile—the band brings in more than enough money for the four of us to live comfortably without ever leaving Nebraska.

I didn’t sign another cookbook deal with a publisher. John quit his job. Gilbert paid off his construction loan. Cameron now has three bosses who won’t let him quit. Mark’s getting married to—well, that’s another story.

And me?

I’m still writing—but only for myself. I started a simple food blog gathering recipes from around town, and it grew into this magical place for people to share core memories involving food. This weekend, Gilbert and I are traveling west to interview a ninety-seven-year-old rancher in the sandhills, who started as the cook’s gopher when he was six. He’s been bringing food out to cowboys every day since. There’s a warm ball of excitement and purpose surrounding this weekend. I can feel it in my bones that it’s where I’m supposed to be.

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