Page 3 of The Spotted Cottage By the Sea
Inside was a black rope, a ski mask, gloves, wire cutters, rappelling gear, and a lock picking kit.
It was, undeniably, the wrong box.
Two
It wasn’t fair to bother Sheila with her problems. Patty knew she only had herself to blame. She was eighty years old, for goodness’ sake! She should’ve known better.
Sheila had her own life. Her hands were full. Patty wasn’t going to bother her.
Except…there was one problem. Derby. Not thathewas a problem – a darling Golden Retriever who loved everyone could never be a problem. But he couldn’t come with her, and who but Sheila would want a ten-year-old dog with arthritic hips and one deaf ear?
Patty sighed. The price of aging with grace.
She stared at her phone. Though Sheila was technically herex-daughter-in-law, there wasn’t much ex about her. She was the mother of her precious grandchildren. She called three times a week just to chat, and when Patty’s husband Ray had died, it was Sheila who planned the funeral, only days after being handed divorce papers by Patty’s own son.
The divorce. Just when Patty thought her heart couldn’t get broken into smaller pieces, Brian had decided he wanted a divorce. Patty would never understand why.
Sheila survived it, though, and survived raising four teenaged daughters. She could surely handle taking in one aging Golden Retriever.
Patty hit the call button, and it rang twice before she rushed to hang up.
No. She couldn’t tell Sheila about any of this until it was over. A done deal. Until she was halfway across the country.
Telling Sheila now would only make things worse. She’d try to fix everything. She’d insist there was something they could do when there most certainly was not.
Her phone lit up with a picture of Sheila’s smiling face.
Oops. Apparently, she hadn’t hung up soon enough.
Patty cleared her throat and answered. “Hey, sweetheart.”
“Is everything okay, Patty?” Sheila asked. “You don’t normally call me in the middle of the morning.”
“Everything is great,” she lied. “How are you? How’s Emma doing with her first week at school? Did she come home for the weekend?”
Sheila laughed. “No, of course not. She couldn’t wait to leave the nest. I’ll be lucky to get them all home for Thanksgiving.”
Patty’s smile faded. Thanksgiving. She would miss that, too, for the first time ever. Would she be alone for it? Would Brian take pity on her and visit the retirement home, or would he jet off to the Caribbean with his new bride and stepsons?
“You know what?” Sheila added. “I was just thinking I needed to pay you a visit. It’s been too long.”
A year, but who was counting? After Ray’s memorial, Patty couldn’t deal with visitors. She was too embarrassed by her grief, and by the time she was ready, a virus had overtaken the world.
That was when her troubles really began. She had broken her hip and ended up away from home and her beloved tea shop formonths.
Sheila came to help, of course, but Patty was able to gloss over issues with the tea shop. The focus then was on her health, which annoyingly refused to return with the speed she wanted.
When Patty got back home, she couldn’t move quite like she used to, but she figured she’d sort it out once the world opened up again. She thought the tea shop would eventually bounce back. She thoughtshewould bounce back.
As it happens, there isn’t much bouncing at eighty, and a tea shop that was closed for the better part of five years needed a lot of work to reopen.
“Sure,” Patty said weakly, “stop by any time.”
Sheila was quiet for a moment. “You sound winded. Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t sound okay.”
