Page 9 of Grown-Up Second Chance

“Probably. I don’t mind going last. I like to read in the morning and do some stretches.”

“Where are you going to do them here?” I asked, eyeing the cramped quarters.

“I’ll take my mat outside. I mean, sun salutations were meant to be done in the sun.”

“I suppose.” Yoga had never appealed to me. Kathleen and I had gotten our father’s squatter body shape, while Liz had developed more like our mother: petite and thin.

Not that I was jealous at all.

“I know we said we’d take care of our own breakfast,” Liz said. “But since today is our first day, I decided to make us pancakes. You up for that?”

“Bacon too?” I asked as she took the package from the small fridge.

As I’d gotten older, bacon had become as seductive as rich dark chocolate.

“Yes,” she said. “Now get your coffee and leave me alone.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Pancakes and bacon. Too bad Liz didn’t want to do that every day. Probably just as well. I didn’t need the ten extra pounds I’d gain.

“Ah, coffee,” Kathleen said as she emerged from the back bedroom, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, not dissimilar from my outfit. Our mother hadn’t been a fashion guru, and neither were we. I’d don the basic business casual for my job and business events in California, but I was only too happy to give up the uniform for comfort.

“After breakfast, I’m going to go into town to get some things,” Kathleen said as she sat in one of the dinette chairs. “Henry told me about a bunch of little gadgets that will make working with the water and sewer lines easier.”

I bit my tongue to keep from asking how much these gadgets were going to cost. Instead, I grabbed clean underwear and headed to the shower, before beginning my work.

Despite my offer to help, Liz cleaned up the kitchen then went outside to do her exercises. As tall men walked by with their short dogs, they took a moment to check out her positions.

When I finished work a few hours later, I leaned back in the chair, my back muscles stiff from its unfamiliar curves and angles. A walk would do me good.

Liz was long done with her yoga and shower. She’d muttered something at me as she’d left the rig with a satchel of some kind, but I’d been deep into trying to understand why the balance sheet for my client had bad numbers. I had no idea what she’d told me.

Once I pulled up the shade, I saw Kathleen ensconced in her chair, coffee mug in hand, her e-book lying on the table next to her as she chatted to a woman who’d taken over my seat. I smiled. It was good to see my sister enjoying herself. Tending to her husband as Michael slowly succumbed to cancer had been hard on her. Although something I’d seen or heard had given me the sense that all hadn’t been well with the pair for a while before he was diagnosed.

Automatically, I slid my phone in my back pocket and headed for the door, passing the trash which was threatening to overflow.

Oh yeah, that was my job.

I bundled it up, then walked out the door, stopping a few moments to chat with Kathleen and her new friend.

“Any idea where Liz is?” I asked.

“Off drawing or painting somewhere. It’s the same routine she followed at home. If the weather was nice, she was out right after breakfast and didn’t return until lunch. Sometimes in the summer, she’d be gone as soon as the sun was up.”

“Your sister’s a painter, then?” the visitor asked. “Is she famous? Would I know her?”

“I have no idea,” Kathleen said. “She paints under another name, and we’ve never been able to pry it out of her.”

“That’s odd,” the woman said.

It was stranger now than when I’d first learned about it. We were her family. Why couldn’t she tell us? Why was it such a big secret?

I held up the bag of trash. “I’ll be back.” I headed down the loop to where I believed the big dumpster would be. Kathleen called out something, but I ignored her as I puzzled over secrets.

There were a few of my own I hadn’t shared with anyone. The pain of my marriage, how deeply Larry had cut me when he blamed me for our lack of children. The therapy I’d gone to again and again to cope with the news that I’d never be a mother. My dalliance with alcohol and valium to dull the ache.

No one needed to know that. It was in the past.

I absently waved and nodded to people as I made the loop, trying to remember where I’d seen the dumpster yesterday as Kathleen circled the park.

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