that night than I ever remembered, and I was proud of him. He’d worked hard and deserved the success.
I wondered now if he’d called her to tell her about the promotion. I racked my brain trying to remember how soon he’d taken a trip to England after that. Had they celebrated there, in some quiet country inn? I imagined the two of them together, laughing across flickering candles and glasses of wine.
Impatient with myself, I tucked the picture away in a drawer and promised myself I wouldn’t look at it again. But like a smoker drawn to another pack, I kept going back for one more peek, one more moment of self-torment.
The next few weeks slipped by while I did my best to keep the house “sparkling” clean, as Linda had suggested, for the steady stream of prospective buyers.
Late at night, when the house was dark and quiet and all mine, I thought about the cottage and wrestled with the tug-of-war going on in my mind. There were times when I wanted to go over there and tear out the woman’s hair in a screaming, bitching catfight. Luckily my horror of making a spectacle of myself in public prevented that option.
I kept telling myself I should put the cottage up for sale, but deep down I knew that once the cottage was sold and the woman who occupied it disappeared, I’d never have the answers I needed so badly. Part of me argued that I didn’t want to know. It was the part that did want to know that kept me from calling James.
As the summer died and the first showers of Seattle’s rainy season sprinkled the thirsty lawns, I faced the inevitable. Val was right. I would never have true peace of mind until I knew the truth about Brandon’s relationship with this woman. Only then could I put the whole mess behind me and get on with my life.
When the house finally sold, I was unprepared. After watching a young couple trailing behind my fast-talking agent, I was sure they hated everything they saw. Linda called a half hour after they left to tell me they’d made an offer.
“It’s a good offer,” she assured me. “Very close to what I expected. It’s up to you, however. You can try a counteroffer, of course, but I think they’re pretty firm.”
I tried to digest the news, though my brain seemed incapable of working. This was it. I say yes now, and it’s all over. “Yes,” I said, before I could talk myself out of it. “I’ll take it.”
At first I felt an overwhelming relief that I didn’t have to find another mortgage payment. My application for a job with the school district had been put on hold until “something suitable had come up,” I’d been informed. I hadn’t looked for anything else.
Then reality set in. I called Val. Much as I hated to admit it, I hadn’t even begun to pack. I was going to need her help after all.
Val’s confident tone reassured me. “I’ll come over in a little while. We’ll work out a plan of action. While you’re waiting for me, mark down apartments in the want ads that appeal to you.”
Apartments. Now that I was actually faced with looking for one, all I could think about were the cramped, cold, dark rooms I’d shared with my mother.
I could still hear the music rebounding off the skimpy walls from next door. My mother pounding on the ceiling when heavy, stumbling footsteps threatened to break through. People coming and going, doors slamming, voices shouting—all of it echoed in my head in a waking nightmare of memories.
How would I adjust after living for so long in a house with all this space around me and the quiet solitude I treasured so much?
The cold, sick feeling of dread almost overwhelmed me. I was convinced I’d made a terrible mistake. I should have hung on to the house, managed the mortgage somehow. I could have cut corners, given up the little extras, anything rather than leave the safe haven of my home.
I thought about calling Linda in the hope that it wasn’t too late to back out of the deal. I never made the call, of course. Instead I did something I’d never done before. I opened Brandon’s cocktail cabinet and took out a half-filled bottle of brandy. I’m no seasoned drinker. By the time Val arrived, my head was buzzing and my tongue had trouble getting out words.
Val took one look at me and plugged in the coffee machine.
My memory of that afternoon is vague, but I remember very clearly the days that followed. The endless packing, sorting and deciding what to keep, what to sell and what to give away. Val insisted we have a garage sale, and I must admit, it gave me a certain satisfaction to see some of Brandon’s prized possessions go for a song. He would not have appreciated that.
Looking for a place to live was something else. After working out a budget, it was clear that even with a reasonably good salary, any house I felt suitable to rent was out of my range. At least until the cottage sold.
Val insisted on taking me to look at apartments, some of which, I had to admit, were half-decent. They were, however, still apartments, and I felt sick every time I imagined myself sharing walls with noisy strangers.
At the end of one long, fruitless afternoon, Val sat me down in my barren living room. “You have two weeks,” she said, “before you have to move out. You should have put the cottage on the market months ago, when you put this one up for sale. You’d have had the money by now and had your pick of where to live. You could even have bought a smaller house.”
“I know,” I said, aware that this time she was right. “It’s too late now.”
“Yes, it is.” Val looked at me, her eyes clouded with concern. “So what are you going to do?”
“I’ll think of something.”
“Well, you can always come live with me until you decide what you want to do.”
That was the wake-up call, the moment I realized I was out of options. I thanked her anyway, and promised myself I’d make a firm decision by the following morning.
After she left I fished out the photograph once more. As always, the charm and beauty of the tiny cottage stirred a deep-seated longing I didn’t fully understand. Half an acre, James had told me. That was a spacious lot. I couldn’t see what was on either side of the cottage, but judging from the background, there was nothing behind it but fields and trees.
How wonderful it would be to live somewhere like that, secluded and peaceful in your own private corner of the world. How lucky she was to have lived there so long.
Staring at the face of the woman who had caused me so much agonizing, I began to feel ashamed of my stalling. She deserved to know Brandon had died. Whether or not she’d been romantically involved with my husband, she was about to lose her home. I knew how that felt. For once I could afford a tinge of sympathy for her. It would be difficult for her to leave such a paradise.
The next instant I hardened my heart. For all I knew, this woman had stolen my husband’s affections and carried on an illicit relationship all these years. Why should my life be shattered and not hers? I called James. It was time to put the cottage on the market.
In his usual brusque way he offered to call the real estate agent in England for me and set things in motion. “Edward Perkins is the man who’ll be handling the sale. Would you like him to appoint a lawyer or do you want to go over there and settle things yourself?”
Seconds ticked by while I fought with indecision. Part of me wanted to let someone else deal with the cottage and then try to put it out of
