Page 92 of Fairy Godmothers Aren't Cheap

Anyway, it hadn’t truly been much of a conscious choice. After our phone call a few nights ago, the two of us had drifted back into spending time together. We’d spent the past day and a half in his parents’ kitchen, eating Sally’s cookies. We’d fleshed out some contingency plans based on when the warehouse might be released by the police, and currently, we were putting the final touches on a website. James had even tested out the project’s online donation system by sending a hundred bucks of his own toward the park.

Was there anything more lovable than a man who was willing to jump into your projects and support you one-hundred per cent, even though the whole thing felt precipitously close to collapsing?

The scrap workers didn’t know when their next opening would be to resume the work, and it was the same with my backhoe friend—once we were allowed back onto the lots, of course. The police had no new leads or clues and were tired of me calling them every day for an update on when they’d release my property.

It had been over a week.

I was antsy and stressed about it, but sitting in the Backstrohm’s kitchen, with Sally’s unconditional adoption of me and my cookie addiction, even though I didn’t quite know how to smoothly insert myself into the Backstrohm family dynamics, I decided this was one of my top three happy places. And, yes, I was counting the museum and Peter’s in that tally.

I was enjoying it while I could and creating some sweet memories to look back on when James was gone and I was feeling down.

At eight o’clock, Sally left the kitchen, her newly adopted dog in tow for their evening walk. I was learning you could set a watch by Sally’s routine. Although this time she was muttering something about having never tried skeet shooting.

I turned to James after Sally shut the front door. “Should we try skeet shooting?”

We shared a look, then shook our heads. Yeah, hitting a flying object seemed unnecessarily difficult.

“I don’t get it. How are your parents still so happily married? They’re so…” I tried to find the words to explain the mystery of his parents’ relationship. They were routine junkies. And yet still in love. Happy. Vibrant even.

With my parents, routine had become their death. Or was their routine an indicator of a death that had occurred long before I’d been old enough to notice?

“Never mind,” I muttered. “No…it’s just… how are they still together? Don’t they get bored with the same old routine? Where’s the adventure to light up their lives? You can’t wait around for life and your partner. You have to live. And they’re just so…”

Ordinary.

Content.

Exceedingly happy.

Peacefully in love.

James was frowning at me like he didn’t understand, and I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. He wasn’t going to take this painful silence and transform it into mutual understanding. He was living in a different reality than I was. And not only because he didn’t seem to have a fairy godmother.

“It’s just…” I felt compelled to try and explain. “If you sit around waiting for your partner so you can go have fun, you get bored and move on. People wanted adventure and passion!”

The more I thought about it, the more worried I was for Sally and her marriage.

“They’ve been married for thirty-four years.”

“Thirty-four years,” I whispered in awe. Of course, they’d been married a long time, but I’d never stopped to figure out how many years that might be. “But…they’re so happy.” It didn’t compute. How did they not get bored with their life and relationship if it was the same all the time?

Maybe they were bored, even though they didn’t seem to be.

“How do they stay interested?” I should be embarrassed by my questions, but I was too curious. Too in need of knowing.

“They got married straight out of high school and?—”

“High school!”

“—have been inseparable ever since. They don’t even really fight.”

“That’s unbelievable, James.”

Blissfully married forthatmany years. How? Didn’t James see what an anomaly his parents were? Nobody could assume they’d land in a relationship like that.

And yet, he did. And I was starting to believe in its possibility.

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