One wish list, a whole new future!

When Scarlett comes across a box containing her most precious items from her teenage years, she’s forced to confront the adult she has become. As a divorced mother of two twentysomethings, Scarlett has to admit her life has ground to a halt! Whatever happened to that girl whose hopes and dreams were so naively displayed in a wish list for her life?

So, armed with the list, Scarlett sets about checking off each and every item possible, determined to fulfil her promises to her younger self. Some are easy. Dancing in the rain? Bring on the next thunderstorm! Marrying her high-school sweetheart? Not so easy when married Jake lives clear across the country!

But what started out as a challenge to herself quickly takes on a life of its own, catapulting Scarlett out of her slump and into a life even her younger self could never have dreamed of!

Also by Buffy Andrews

The Christmas Violin

The Moment Keeper

It’s in the Stars

Our Fragile Hearts

A Year of Second Chances

Buffy Andrews

ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Author Bio

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Epilogue

Excerpt

Copyright

BUFFY ANDREWS

lives in south central Pennsylvania with her husband, Tom, and wheaten cairn terrier, Kakita.

By day, she works for USA Today Network as its Regional Engagement Manager for the Northeast.

By night, she writes middle-grade, young adult and women's fiction.

Some of her fiction ideas pop into her head at the most inopportune times, such as during a sermon or in the shower or when she’s supposed to be listening in a meeting. She’s written all over church bulletins, jumped out of the shower more than once to write down an idea and turned meeting handouts into storyboards.

If you see her out and about, don’t be surprised if you see her pull out the notebook she keeps in her purse. She’s forever taking notes she’ll use later. After all, life is full of wonderful details to capture.

I thank God for walking with me each and every day, for giving me the strength and courage to push forward despite whatever obstacles I might face.

I thank my husband, Tom, and sons, Zach and Micah, for their endless support and encouragement. I love you guys more than you’ll ever know.

I thank my friends and family who have cheered me on and have always been there when I needed an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on or arms for a warm hug. I love you all so very much!

Lastly, I thank my editor Victoria Oundjian who has pushed and challenged me to make this book the best it could be. Thank you for your unwavering support and for helping to bring this book to the world.

Blessings to each and every one of you, Buffy

To Tom,

The love of my life

Chapter 1

I kept telling myself I wasn’t going to die, that the radiologist simply wanted to double-check my right breast to make sure it was as benign as the left. Nothing more than a big ball of size 36C fat. But the C word kept popping up like that irritating “unexpected item in the bagging area” message I always seem to get after scanning every third item at self-checkout.

I called Shonna on my way to the imaging center. I’d already talked to my bestie the night before and she’d calmed me down, but I needed her reassurance again.

“I think I’m going to die,” I blurted into the phone.

I could hear Shonna turn on the faucet.

“Are you listening to me? I said I think I’m going to die.”

“Now stop it. We talked about this last night. Don’t jump to conclusions. Even if they find something it doesn’t mean you’ll die. They probably just saw something suspicious and want to take a closer look. I’ve had other friends who’ve had mammogram callbacks and they turned out to be nothing.”

“But what if it’s something?” I pushed.

“Then we’ll deal with it, but remember, ninety-nine percent of the things we worry about never happen.”

“I know you’re right but I can’t help thinking the worst. I’ve never received a callback before.”

“Deep breaths, Scarlett. One step at a time. For now they simply want to get a closer look.”

By the time I arrived at the imaging center, my heart felt like it was going to pop out of my chest. I tried to calm myself by taking deep breaths. My anxiety was surely even greater because my boss’s mother had had breast cancer and died, so of course that’s all I could think about.

The imaging center was busier than during my previous visit but I found a seat in the back facing the wall. I didn’t feel like exchanging small pleasantries with anyone. I just wanted to get the scanning over with and find out if I had the big C. Would I divide my life BC/AC, Before Cancer/After Cancer, I wondered.

Finally, I was called back by a technician who introduced herself as Linda. She looked to be about my age. I changed into a pink floral top that snapped down the front and followed Linda into a room with a huge white machine standing in the middle of it.

“Please, sit down,” she said. “Do you know the date of your last period?”

I reached inside my purse and pulled out my monthly pocket calendar. I noted when I got my period by writing a P in the tiny date boxes, a habit that had carried over from my teen years when there really was a chance I could get pregnant because I actually did have sex. “April 20.”

“Are you sexually active?”

I shook my head.

“I’m sorry, is that a no?”

Yes, it’s a no. I haven’t had anything hard in five years!

“Yes. I mean no, I haven’t had sexual relations with anyone for quite some time.”

Linda furrowed her brows. “Oh, okay.”

She thinks I’m weird. Should I explain I want to have sex but there’s no one special in my life and I’m not into hooking up?

No, let it go. I can’t be the only forty-nine-year-old who’s wasting the prime years of her life on a purple rabbit vibrator I nicknamed Jack.

Linda nodded toward the machine. “Stand in front and slip your right arm out of your top.”

I stood and walked over to the machine and did what she said. She peeled off a little sticker with a tiny bead in the middle of it. “I’m going to mark your nipple. It helps the radiologist who reads the mammogram. We wouldn’t want him to mistake it for an abnormality.”

How can a nipple be mistaken for an abnormality?

“If the nipple rolls during compression the area might look suspicious.”

She read my mind.

“Think of your nipple like the North Star,” she continued. “It’s a point of reference for the radiologist and helps him read the mammogram.”

Visualizing my nipple lighting up the north sky made me giggle.

She thinks my nipple is big. It is big. Big and probably cancerous. Mike always liked my nipples. Screw Mike. Stop it, Scarlett.

I stepped toward the machine, placing my hand where Linda had instructed. I winced as she positioned my breast against the cold support plate and compressed it, flattening it out like she was prepping a piece of chicken to coat with bread crumbs and seasoning and bake.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded. Just take the damn picture.

Linda dashed to the console behind a see-through barrier to take the image. “Don’t breathe, don’t move.”

I held my breath and exhaled seconds later when the compression plate retreated.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I nodded. “We women know how to take pressure!”

She laughed and proceeded to take additional photos of my right breast from different angles.

“We’re done,” Linda finally said. “You can have a seat in the waiting area while the radiologist checks these films. Don’t get dressed until I tell you to in case he wants additional images.”

I grabbed my purse and headed to the waiting room, which was packed. It was much smaller than the other waiting area so I had no choice but to sit next to someone. And it was just my luck she was a talker.

“Is this your first time getting a mammogram?” asked the woman, a petite brunette who looked to be thirty-something.

I shook my head.

“It’s mine. I’m only thirty-four but my doctor felt a lump during my annual exam.”

I nodded.

“Did you ever have a lump?”

I shifted in my seat. “No.”

“I hope it’s not cancer.”

I wasn’t sure what to say so I said something really stupid. “I hope so, too.”

I should’ve told her that eighty percent of breast lumps aren’t cancerous and that they often turn out to be harmless cysts, but I didn’t have time. The nurse returned and told her she could get dressed. The radiologist was ready to see her.

I picked up a magazine and started reading an article about the First Lady when Linda popped in to tell me I could get dressed. I took it as a good sign that the radiologist didn’t need any more views.

Five minutes later, I was in his office staring at images on the screens.

Dr. Johnson sat in front of two monitors and pointed to the images on the left one. “These are the images taken last Friday. See this area here? I wanted to double-check that.”

He then pointed to images on the other monitor. “These images, taken today from other angles, give me a better look at that site. Do you see these fine white specks?”

I nodded.

“They are calcium deposits within the breast tissue.”

My heart started to race. “Are they cancerous?”

“Calcifications are usually noncancerous, but I’d like to send you to a surgeon to have a breast biopsy to be sure.”

I’m dying. I knew it. Oh, stop, Scarlett.

“You said calcifications are usually noncancerous. What do they look like when they are?”

Dr. Johnson opened his desk drawer and pulled out a laminated sheet showing two types of calcifications. He pointed to the top image. “These are macro calcifications. They are large, round and well-defined and are more likely to be benign.” He then pointed to the bottom image. “These are micro calcifications, or tight clusters of tiny, irregularly shaped calcifications. Certain patterns might indicate cancer.”

I looked at the image on the laminated sheet of paper and then at the image on the computer screen. “Mine look like the bottom photo.” I started to tremble. I knew it. I had cancer.

“That’s why I’d like you to see a surgeon. Just to make sure they’re benign.”

I tried to stop the tears from coming, but it was no use. My face felt like it was on fire. All I could think about was dying.

Dr. Johnson handed me a tissue.

“So who do you recommend I see?”

“Dr. Edwards. He’s excellent and it’s who I’d want my wife to see if this was her mammogram.”

The next ten minutes were a blur. The nurse returned and asked me to come with her. We went into a small room and I sat while she called the surgeon’s office to schedule an appointment.

“You don’t have anything sooner?” I heard her ask. The nurse looked at me, covering the receiver with her hand. “The soonest they have is next Friday.”

I sighed. “But that’s a whole week away.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Ask them if they’ll call if someone cancels.”

I heard the nurse ask and then confirm the Friday appointment. She hung up and handed me a slip of paper with the doctor’s address on it. “Dr. Edwards is the best. You’ll be in good hands. Good luck.”

Good luck? It’s not like I’m going to play tennis with him! I don’t need luck; I need prayers. “Thanks”

The nurse showed me to the exit and as soon as I crawled into my car I broke down, the tears coming as fast as a waterfall that crashes onto jagged rocks below.

I called Shonna and in between sobs managed to mumble breast, biopsy and cancer.

“Calm down,” Shonna said. “We need to take this one step at a time. It might not be anything.”

“But it probably is. I’m probably dying. I’ll never get to see my kids marry or play with my grandchildren.”

“Scarlett, stop it. Stop it right now. I’m not trying to minimize this, but a lot of people have breast calcifications and they’re usually benign.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never been like most people.”

We talked some more and I drove to Mom and Dad’s, wondering how I was going to keep a happy face the rest of the day. I wasn’t going to tell Mom and Dad. I didn’t want to worry them and feared they’d let it slip to the kids. I’d tell David and Tory if I needed to.

I’d already arranged to take the day off when I got the callback. My parents were moving to a retirement community and Mom had asked me to sort through boxes in the basement to see if there was anything I wanted to keep. I couldn’t imagine finding anything of value, but I promised Mom I’d look anyway.

Chapter 2

I stared at the list I’d written when I was seventeen. Thirty-two years had passed since I scribbled my hopes and dreams on the white napkin and tucked it inside my high-school yearbook. A knot formed in my throat as I scanned the items. Marry Jake. Take a road trip with my bestie. Live in a big city. Overcome my fear of heights. Buy a sports car. Make lots of money. Own a boutique. I must’ve listed twenty things. My dreams had sparkled like bright stars in the night sky, waiting to be plucked one at time. What happened? Some stars had faded; others had long been forgotten, swallowed by life and its twists and turns. The things you never see coming when you’re seventeen.

A tear slid down my cheek, and I wiped it away with the back of my hand. I suppose there comes a time in everyone’s life when you realize you have fewer years ahead than behind you. And suddenly it becomes important to make sure that, when winter comes, you’ve lived the best life you could. Facing the possibility of having breast cancer only intensified my feelings and need to grasp hold of whatever time I had left.

And that’s when I decided I had to make some changes in my life. The kids were grown and each night I went to bed lonely in a house I’d once shared with Tory and David and their dad. Mike gave me the house as part of the divorce settlement along with the mini-van. We’d been married nineteen years and the last five were riddled with insults and angry outbursts. We fought all the time about everything and nothing. The kids. Work. Money. Even where we should go on vacation. The year we turned forty-two, we’d decided to call it quits. We both wanted to end our marriage before we hated each other. So, I got the house and the mini-van (he, by the way, had a sports car!) and he moved to a condo across town. We’re both still single and, to be honest, I haven’t met anyone in the past seven years who’s made me feel the way Mike once did.

I heard Mom’s voice but, from the musty corner of her basement, I couldn’t make out what she’d yelled. I walked over to the steps leading to the first floor. “Sorry, Mom. I couldn’t understand you.”

“I asked if you were hungry.”

I rubbed my stomach. “I’m starving.”

“Good. I made one of your favorites. Chicken corn soup.”

I smiled. “Just let me finish packing this box and I’ll be right up.”

I returned to the cardboard box with “Scarlett’s Stuff” scribbled on the top in black magic marker. I’d apparently stashed it down here when I was still in love with Jake, my high-school sweetheart. Besides the list, the box held other treasures from my high-school years. A program from my senior class play. The roses Jake gave me for our first Valentine’s Day (now a crisp bundle of tan petals tipped in Pepto-Bismol pink). My honor society certificate, encased in a black frame chipped at the corner. A photo of my best friend Shonna and I posing in our puffy-sleeved prom dresses. We couldn’t have looked more different. She was six foot and I was barely five. She had long chestnut hair and mine was long and strawberry blonde. She had brown eyes and I had green. And yet our friendship had lasted and, like fine wine, gotten better with age.

Besides the high-school mementos, I found a shoebox filled with items I’d made for Scarlett’s Shop. I laughed, remembering my pop-up store. I’d sell my homemade items at school, at home, anywhere I could display them and make money. Popsicle-stick picture frames. Painted rocks with magnets on the back. Clothespin caterpillars (think colorful pom-poms glued to a clothespin with googly eyes). I picked up a bookmark I’d made from a Christmas card Mom had saved. A wave of memories washed over me. I’d always wanted to own a boutique. It was another dream never realized.

I put all the items back in the dusty box and carried it upstairs.

Dad looked up from reading the newspaper. “I see you found something you wanted to keep.”

I placed the box in the corner of the dining room. “Yeah. I came across some stuff from high school. And my store, remember that?”

“Oh, my, yes,” Mom said. “You were always making stuff for that shop of yours. For a while there I was driving you to the craft store every week to buy supplies.”

I laughed.

“I still have the trophy you made me for Mother’s Day.” Mom opened the cabinet above the refrigerator. That’s where she kept vases and special dishes, things she didn’t use every day. She retrieved the trophy and turned around, holding it high for Dad and me to see.

I rolled my eyes. “I can’t believe you still have that.”

“And I always will,” Mom said. “It’s one of those things you never toss out.”

I’d wrapped a baby food jar in aluminum foil and pasted a pink construction paper circle on the front with the words: World’s Best Mom.

I sat in the chair across from Dad, the same chair I’d always sat in growing up. Funny how your spot at the family dinner table never changes no matter how old you are. Just like the pew you sit in at church or that special seat you sink into when binge-watching a favorite TV show.

Mom sat a bowl of soup in front of me. I could’ve gotten it myself, but I knew she liked being able to do things for me, her “little girl.”

“You were the prettiest gal in your high-school class,” Mom said. “Wasn’t she, Howard?”

Dad winked. “Still is. Of course, she takes after her mother.”

Mom patted Dad on the shoulder. They’d been married fifty-five years and still seemed so in love. I wondered what their secret was. They’d always made it seem so easy. Not that they never fought, but they always seemed to weather the tough times and come out better.

“The soup’s delicious, Mom.”

“I put a lot of hardboiled eggs in it because I know that’s how you like it.”

Moms never forget. Dads sometimes do. But moms, they remember everything, even the things you wished they’d forget. Like coming home late from a date or borrowing an expensive piece of jewelry and losing it.

Mom sat down across from me. At seventy-seven, she was still the most beautiful woman I knew. Like Dad, she had white hair, which she wore in a stylish bob. Her blueberry eyes seemed to bounce like rubber balls when she talked. “Did you get through all the boxes?”

“I think so. I had no idea you had so much stuff packed in the basement.”

“I’ve been telling her to get rid of it for years,” Dad said. “But you know your mother. She’s a pack rat.”

Mom shook her head.

“You’re just as bad, Dad.”

Dad’s wiry eyebrows jumped to the top of his forehead. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Have you been in the garage lately?”

Dad tucked his chin into his broad chest.

I playfully shook my finger at him. “No, you haven’t been in the garage because you can’t get in the garage.”

“She has a point, Howard.”

Dad waved his hand. “Two against one. No fair.”

I picked up my water glass. “Bottom line, guys. You have a lot of stuff that has to go. Now that I’ve been through the boxes in the basement and Tommy has, I think the next step is calling someone to haul away what you can’t take with you.”

My brother, Tommy, and I knew moving into a retirement community out of state was a big step for our parents. After living in a four-bedroom, two-story house, moving into an apartment would be an adjustment. So would living so far away from Tommy and me. But after their best friends had moved from Pennsylvania to Florida, they’d decided to join them. Last winter’s northeaster, which dumped more than twenty inches of snow, had sealed the deal.

Before leaving, I called movers and arranged for them to haul the items Mom and Dad wanted to take to their new place. Then I called an auctioneer to take what was left.

I picked up the box I’d stashed in the dining room. Mom and Dad followed me outside and waited as I put it on the backseat of the car. I turned and hugged them.

“Tell the kids to call,” Mom said. “I haven’t talked to either of them in weeks.”

“I will.” I kissed Mom and Dad and climbed into the car.

I pulled out of the driveway, past the mailbox I’d hit when I was learning to drive Dad’s Chevy Malibu, a metallic bronze boat. Driving through the old neighborhood was bittersweet. An avalanche of memories buried me in emotions, heavy and wet with tears.

It seemed like only yesterday Shonna and I had roamed these streets. Funny how time changes with age. When you’re young, an hour is forever. With age comes wisdom and the realization there’s no present, only past and future. Every moment is either one or the other. It’s like going to the ocean and watching the waves crash on the beach. There appears to be a line separating the two, but there isn’t. There is only water and sand.

I knew what my past held and that I had the power to change the future. But did I have the courage? I had the list I’d found. Maybe that was a start. Maybe my future lay in visiting the past and realizing some of those teenage dreams. Maybe it wasn’t too late to find myself again. At the very least, I owed it to myself to try.

Chapter 3

I dreaded coming home to an empty house. Tory, who’d graduate from college in a week, was moving to New York. Like me, she’d earned a degree in marketing. Unlike me, she was actually going to use her degree. David, a couple years older, lived in Chicago where he worked for a tech start-up. I carried the box inside and sat it on the kitchen counter. Muffin, who’d been sleeping on the couch, barreled toward me. I bent down to pet her.

“Great watch dog you are, Muffin. What if I’d been a robber? What then, silly dog?”

She rolled over onto her back, waiting for me to rub her belly. There was a day when Muffin would’ve been at the door barking before the garage door was halfway up. She was in the twilight of her life and her old terrier body wasn’t as quick as it used to be.

I remember the day we brought her home. She weighed about three pounds and her black button nose took up most of her face.

Tory had begged to get a dog. Mike, who never had pets growing up, didn’t want the responsibility or expense. “Please,” Tory had pleaded. “I’ll take care of her. Promise.”

Mike never could say no to Tory so when he brought home a big box with a red bow on top I wasn’t surprised by what was inside. That was twelve years ago.

My cell phone beeped and I pulled it out of my purse. It was a text from Shonna.

Worried about you. What did your parents say?

I texted back: Didn’t tell them. Don’t want them to worry.

Makes sense. I’m sure you’ll be fine.

I texted Shonna about finding the list.

The List? she texted back.

Yeah!

For real?

Yes. Found it in my yearbook.

Wish I still had mine.

Lots to talk about.

K. Call you after work.

I don’t get to see my bestie that often. After graduating from college, she’d moved to Vermont. Growing up, we always said we’d attend the same college and move to New York City when we graduated. We planned to share an apartment and have great careers. Eventually, I wanted to open my own boutique. We did attend the same college, but that’s the only part of the plan that came true. I met Mike my senior year and his list became my list.

I filled up Muffin’s water bowl, picked up the box I’d brought home and opened it. I pulled out a couple of the painted rock magnets and put them on the refrigerator. I also stuffed one in my purse. They’d be a daily reminder of that long-forgotten dream.

I carried the box upstairs to my bedroom and pulled out the list before storing it in my walk-in closet.

I sat on the edge of my bed, reading the list again. I remembered the night Shonna and I wrote them. It was the summer I’d turned seventeen. We were hanging out at the town pizza joint waiting for Jake and Shonna’s boyfriend, Butch, to finish their shifts stocking shelves at the local grocery store.

I’d pulled two napkins from the metal dispenser sitting on the table and handed one to Shonna. “Let’s make wish lists.”

Shonna took the napkin and retrieved a pen from her purse. “Oh, this is going to be so easy. I might need a second napkin because my list will be long.”

“Just unfold it,” I said, “and write small.”

“Wouldn’t it be cool to keep these lists and look at them years from now and see how many of them came true?”

I nodded. “Great idea. Let’s keep them.”

Later that night, I’d stuffed the list into my yearbook, between the page featuring the homecoming court and the one containing group photos of the bowling and ski clubs.

I scanned the list again, noticing that my penmanship at seventeen was the same as at forty-nine. Some things never change, I thought, and other things definitely do. Like my marriage. For the first couple years it was great. The next few, which included the birth of our two children, weren’t bad either. But little by little Mike and I grew apart.

He resented me for pressuring him to give up his dream job in New York after David was born so we could live closer to my parents. David came as a surprise after we’d both had too much to drink one night and had left the condom lying unwrapped on the nightstand. I’d been having terrible headaches and had to stop taking the pill. A month later, I was pregnant.

At first Mike was furious and blamed me for getting pregnant. But once David was born, we both fell in love with him. Our one-bedroom apartment became even smaller and, after months of nagging, Mike finally gave in and found a job closer to home. I think it was the one and only time he compromised in our marriage. Things were great at first. I was happy and I thought Mike was happy, too. But as news of big promotions and raises filtered in from his New York buddies, he began to resent me for taking him away from it all. They were living the life Mike had wanted to live, the one I’d “forced him” to give up.

I, on the other hand, began to resent Mike. He worked all the time and whenever I said something about it he complained he wouldn’t have to work so hard if I’d find a decent job.

He didn’t consider my working in the school cafeteria a decent job. To be honest, I think he was embarrassed that his wife, who had a degree in marketing, had settled for a job as a cafeteria monitor. But I took the job because it fit the kids’ schedules. I had off when they had off and didn’t have to worry about finding before- or after-school care or lining up weeks of summer camps.

I looked back over the list, wondering which item I should tackle first. Some of them were no longer relevant or possible. Like marrying Jake, although I’d be lying if I said I never thought about what my life would’ve been like if I had. Jake and Mike were as different as yes and no. Jake was the consummate gentleman while Mike was a bit of a bad boy. Jake followed the rules and only took calculated risks while Mike was a rule breaker and took chances.

The two loves in my life were so different that comparing them seemed like an injustice to each. In the end, I chose Mike. He was mysterious and sexy, so different from kind and dependable Jake. I guess I wanted someone different and was seduced by Mike’s boundless energy and wild ambition.

Still, I’d never forgotten Jake, my first love and the guy I thought I’d marry. The one I’d lost my virginity to while making out on a blanket spread beneath a peach tree in an orchard near his home. I still couldn’t pick up a peach without remembering that night.

It was a sultry August night, scented with teenage sweat spiced with musk cologne and a powdery perfume. After the movies, Jake and I headed to our kissing spot. We considered ourselves lucky. Unlike our friends, we had the perfect make-out place, free from cops popping by to tell us to “move along.”

We talked about going the whole way for a while, but I was still nervous. It was Jake’s first time, too, and I can still see his hands shake as he ripped open the condom. That first time wasn’t quite like we’d imagined, but the awkwardness subsided and our lovemaking got better over time. Then college came and both of us were thrust into different worlds states apart. We held on through the holidays, but by Valentine’s Day our freshmen year, there was no denying Cupid had other plans – for both of us. I was terrified of ending a romance that started in Mr. Mummert’s sixth-grade class. While I knew it was the right thing to do, I worried no one would ever love me as much as Jake did. Turned out I’d found someone who loved me more, or so I thought.

Mike and I met in the college cafeteria. I reached for the tongs in the container of carrot strips and he did, too. Our hands brushed, and he pulled his away. “Sorry,” he said. I turned to look at him and melted as I stared into his chocolate eyes. His tousled chestnut hair hung down past his chin, and he whipped his head to the right, trying to free a renegade strand tangled in his long eyelashes. His beautiful smile sealed the deal. I wanted to get to know him better.

By the time we graduated, we were engaged. Mike didn’t have money for an engagement ring, so he made one out of a large paper clip. He somehow managed to twist the wire into intertwining hearts. It was the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen. He gave it to me one winter night after walking back from the library. It’d started snowing while we were studying and by the time we left, a few inches had blanketed the ground. He stopped at a bench in the courtyard next to the library. It was the same bench where we’d shared our first kiss, the kiss that turned my insides to liquid and made me feel like I was being tickled from the inside.

“Mind if we sit?” he’d said.

I sat down beside him and he took my hands in his, trying to keep them warm.

I looked up at the sky, watching the icy flakes, illuminated by a nearby street lamp, as they fell. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Mike smiled. “Not as beautiful as you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I playfully slapped his shoulder.

“No, I’m serious, Scarlett.”

He let go of my hands, stood up and knelt before me on the snow-covered ground. He reached into his pocket and my chin trembled. I could feel tears pooling in my eyes. He held up the homemade engagement ring. “I know I don’t have a lot to offer you right now, but will you marry me? I’m in love with you, Scarlett. I love everything about you. Your strawberry-blonde hair and the way it bounces on your back when you walk. Your shimmering green eyes with specks of gold. The way you talk with your hands and laugh at my jokes, even when they aren’t funny. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I’m hoping you feel the same.”

A warm tear had slid down my chilled face as Mike held up the ring. “It’s beautiful.”

“I promise you I’ll buy you a diamond someday. A big one. As big as you want.”

I laughed. “Diamonds don’t matter.”

“But I thought they were a girl’s best friend?”

“Maybe some girls, but not this one.” I stood and touched his heart. “What matters most is what’s in here.”

It was the most magical moment of my life. Surrounded by falling snow and wrapped in his arms, we kissed until our tongues were tired.

I shook my head, trying to shake the cobwebs from my mind. It was at times like this, when I remembered how it once was and wondered how something so good could turn so bad, that my heart ached.

My parents weren’t happy about the marriage. They’d wanted me to go to grad school. After graduation, Mike and I moved to New York where he took a job in banking (the one I later forced him to give up) and I took a job as a nanny. It was the only work I could find, and I loved kids. I didn’t mind that my career had taken a backseat to his, but I sometimes wondered what my life would’ve been like if it hadn’t.

I walked over to my dresser and opened the silver jewelry box Mike had given me the first Christmas we shared together. I retrieved the ring and slid it onto my finger. After all these years, it still fit. But unlike the ring, which had maintained its shape, our marriage had not. Somewhere between running the kids to music lessons and game practices and myriad other activities, we’d lost one another.

Sometimes I wondered if it was my fault. Mike wasn’t perfect but I wasn’t perfect either. Maybe if I had done more. But then I’d remind myself that I was the one who ran the kids everywhere – doctor and dentist and game practices and music lessons. I was the one who organized every birthday party and scout gathering, who taught Sunday school and vacation Bible school. Who helped with homework and so many science projects I considered buying stock in the company that made those trifold display boards. Even after weighing what I did against what he did, I was still willing to accept some blame, but his affair had tipped the scale. The damage was too great.

While I was taking care of our children, he was taking care of his dick. He tried to blame me. He actually said the affair was my fault.

“You were never there for me,” he’d said.

“That’s because I was taking care of your children, something you could’ve helped with.”

We’d trade jabs and eventually he knocked me out. I was tired of fighting and just wanted to move on with my life.

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