Page 114 of Hometown Girl

“Sure I do.”

“I don’t think so. You try to force those plants and flowers to grow, and it’s never going to happen. Just water them. Give them light. Eventually they’ll shoot up out of that soil like the gladiators they are. They do it because it’s what they were made to do.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying if you do what you were made to do, then you’ll find the peace you’ve been looking for. You can’t work for it, you know. You just have to rest in it.” Birdie’s words wove an invisible thread between them.

Beth studied her hands, folded in her lap.

Birdie leaned in, as if to share a secret. “Just like you can’t earn love. Or forgiveness. Or grace. Those things are gifts. You just have to reach out and take them.” Birdie covered Beth’s hands with her own. “You don’t get to be my age without a few lessons along the way.” Her smile was sympathetic, like the smile of a person who actually understood.

Beth stilled.

“It’s awful tiresome, if you ask me.” The woman pulled her hands away and slumped in her chair. “I mean, why work for something you already have?”

The words radiated into Beth’s weary soul.

“I heard a quote once: ‘The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you figure out why.’”

Beth met her eyes.

“Find your ‘why’ and the rest of it—that will fall into place. And it’ll let you off the hook. All the things you thought youshouldhave done—if they aren’t part of your ‘why,’ then they don’t matter anymore.”

Beth sat silent for a few long seconds. “I have a ‘why.’”

“Having a ‘why’ isn’t the same as having something to prove.”

Beth frowned.

Birdie glanced at the canvases on the table in front of her. “You know, once upon a time, all I wanted was a gallery showing in New York City.” Beth’s face must’ve shown her surprise, because Birdie laughed. “I know, can you believe it? Me in a New York City gallery? I worked tirelessly to make that happen. I thought once it did, I would finally—finally—be somebody. I’d be respected and well-thought-of andknown.”

Birdie pulled her stack of paintings from the box.

“There’s something deep down within us, isn’t there, that just wants to be known?”

There was. Beth had felt that longing many times.

“Anyway, I had my gallery showing in the city.”

“You did?”

“Don’t sound so surprised, kid. I’m a sensational artist.” Birdie winked at her. “And you know what? My heart never settled into it. I started painting what the gallery owners and my manager told me to paint, instead of what my own soul wanted to paint. They wanted me to wear stuffy clothes and look professional, and I wanted to be my hippie-dippy self.”

“So what did you do?”

“I left.”

“Just like that?”

“Packed up my brushes and moved to this little hole-in-the-wall town in Illinois, where I met my husband, who gave me the very best life I could’ve ever imagined.”

“Here?”

“Yes, right here in Willow Grove, hometown girl.”

“You didn’t feel like a failure for not going after the big dream?”

Birdie waved her off, her bracelets clanging together halfway up her arm. “Are you kidding? Thisisthe big dream!” She let out a loud laugh. “I started to love painting again. I was creating whatever I wanted—nobody got to tell me how my art should look or what the people would buy. I didn’t care. I just did it because I loved it.”

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