The Standing She Did Not Know She Had

The Draycotts had built their whole lives around the company.

I had learned, at great cost, that a life built around a company is not much of a life.

I wanted the other thing.

On a bright, cool afternoon late in the season, I sat on my own back porch and watched the golden leaves come down across the lawn, and Brigid came out with two mugs of warm cider and sat beside me on the bench, and from inside the sunroom I could hear Isla, three months old now, making the soft unbothered sounds of a baby who has never once had to wonder whether she is wanted.

“How are you feeling?” Brigid asked, resting her shoulder against mine.