doing a deal with them, or needed to befriend them, or impress them.
She didn’t have to take the kids on vacation to only the smartest and best hotels, hotels that always intimidated her, where she never felt she belonged. For the first time in a long time—fifteen years to be exact—Kit didn’t have to please anyone other than herself.
Of course there were the children too—dramatic, strong-willed Tory, and easy, easygoing Buckley, and she always had to consider them, but she didn’t have to change her way of living, change her life for them.
And while she knew there would be times when she would feel vulnerable and lonely and scared, she also knew that the more time that passed, the less she would feel those things, and when she did, she would breathe through the feeling and remind herself it always passed.
So she woke up, made coffee and climbed back into bed, sipping slowly and looking out of the window at the tree tops, refusing to be daunted by the boxes all over the house, relishing the feeling of being free.
They spent the day unpacking, Tory miserably until Kit promised her a cool daybed from PB Teen, and then, toward dusk, there was a banging on the door and it was flung open before anyone had a chance to even get up. A small, wiry, very tanned old woman with long white hair in a ponytail came striding into the living room holding a stack of plates with a pie balanced precariously on the top.
“I’m Edie,” she said. “I live next door in the purple house.” Tory caught Buckley’s eye and suppressed a grin—they had been wondering who lived in the bright purple eyesore next door. “And before you ask, no, I won’t paint it. I love the color purple and you’ll get used to it.”
“I . . . I hadn’t noticed,” Kit lied.
“I’ve brought you a homemade rhubarb and cherry pie”—Edie put the plates down on the counter—“and some plates for us to eat it off as I figured you wouldn’t have unpacked yet.”
“You need a job,” she said, half an hour later, after the group had swapped small talk and licked their plates clean. She peered at Kit as Kit pretended not to be disconcerted by this tiny, white- haired bundle of energy who had made herself instantly at home.
“I do? ” Kit said, wondering how Edie had known; for it was true, it was just that Kit hadn’t got around to telling anyone.
“Why yes.” Edie got up, opened the fridge, found a carton of orange juice and helped herself. “It’s not good for all you young girls to give up your jobs once you’ve had children. You get bored and have far too much time to worry about things you don’t have to worry about. Everyone should work, in my opinion. We need to exercise our brains just as much as our bodies.”
“Do you exercise?” Tory asked, somewhat mesmerized by Edie.
“I most certainly do,” Edie said, flexing her muscles. “I do Pilates twice a week and play tennis every weekend.”
“Not at all,” Edie dismissed Kit. “I like people who speak their minds. I’m eighty-three years young.”
“Wow! ” Tory said. “You look amazing.”
“You see? ” Edie beamed with delight. “That’s because I take care of my body and my mind.”
“So what do you do? ” Kit couldn’t help but ask.
“I’m a realtor.” Edie’s chest puffed up with pride. “The star of the Burton Holloway group for the last thirty years.”
“Thirty years! ” Tory, at thirteen, couldn’t fathom doing anything for that long. “That’s a lifetime.”
“Almost!” Edie chuckled. “I’m going to speak to my friend Robert McClore about you. He’s been looking for an assistant for ages, and he keeps trying out these silly young things who haven’t a clue how to use their initiative and don’t have a bone of common sense in their bodies. He needs someone like you. Know how to type? ” She examined Kit with a beady eye.
“I . . . of course.” Robert McClore! The famous writer! Kit grinned, thinking this was the most exciting thing to have happened to her since she once sat in the same restaurant as Ray Liotta.
Kit had realized that knowing she would have to get a job was very different to actually finding one. In the early days, she didn’t have the strength to actively look, being too busy packing up the house,