Chapter 72

CHAPTER 72

I 'd woken up alone that morning, which wasn't as bad as I'd thought it might be when I'd thought about Max leaving. Because Max was definitely leaving. So I lay there alone and thought about the future and for the first time, I wasn't afraid. I mean, I'm not stupid, I know there'll be more bad stuff, life is full of bad stuff, but there can be good stuff, and I wasn't going to brace myself for the bad anymore, that general feeling of dread I'd had for fifty years.

Fifty years. It was my birthday today. But I'd already gotten the gift I needed: My baby was safe and Serena would never hurt her again.

Everything was going to be all right.

So I rose up that morning with a smile on my face and dialed up Bob Marley on the iPod while I got dressed, his three little birds telling me that everything was going to be all right, and on an impulse dug through my jewelry box for the bird earrings Ozzie had given me after I'd played Marley's song for him. I was pretty sure there was a bird charm in the junk box, and when I'd found it, I went downstairs to glue three little birds to my self-portrait (so much better than a Cheery Boost) and stopped when I saw my bottle on the shop counter.

Poppy had gone to a birthday party at Mei's when she was six, and Lian had put crowns on the cupcakes and told them they were all queens, not princesses, and Poppy had saved that crown for thirteen years to remind herself that she was a queen and not a princess.

And now she'd glued that crown to the top of my self-portrait.

Yeah, I cried some then.

She was right, we were queens. We were definitely gonna be all right.

I walked into the kitchen and saw Poppy and said, "Thank you," and she nodded and got a little teary. She gave me a hug and whispered, "Happy Birthday, Queen," before she went upstairs to dress, and that was the best birthday present yet.

Then Max said he was going to stay another week, but when he'd said that, I could see the panic in his eyes, so I sat on his lap and kissed him and stole his wallet. It seemed like the right thing to do.

"Listen," I said to him, patting his chest over his jacket pocket. "Don't worry about leaving in a week. Poppy and I need some time to recover, and I need to figure out who I am without Cheery Boost. I've decided there's no point in getting fixated on the future. I don't even know what we're having for lunch."

"Lasagna would be good," Max said.

"So you finish the Trail." I smiled at him. "And maybe you'll come back."

"Uh," Max said, probably trying to figure out what the right thing to say was, so I kissed him again, and he just went with that, and that's when I stole his wallet.

In a way, it was almost a relief that he would be going: I could concentrate on getting Poppy feeling safe again, work on the shop and get all the inheritance stuff ironed out, maybe finish that self-portrait, adapt to being fifty, get my life under control. That was the problem with relationships, you actually had to consider other people. I'd spent my whole life considering other people, trying to be what other people wanted.

But here's the thing: Doing that for fifty years meant that I wasn't actually sure who I was. If I wasn't Oz's housekeeper or Poppy's mom or Coral and Lian's friend, not the person you called on to fix things, not the shopkeeper who sold Betty Baumgarten ugly teacups. If you took all of that away, who was I? I wasn't sure, but what I was sure of was that I had to figure that out before I seduced Max back into my life.

It was time to extend Selfish Day into Selfish Year. Decade. Rest of my life.

Once Poppy was okay again, of course.

But then, living for myself? Hell, yes, I needed to learn to do that.

I was still going to wallow in this week with Max. And not just because of the sex, although thank you very much for that, Mr. Reddy. I just liked having him around. He felt right. Maybe if he'd stayed, we might have gotten used to each other. Might have done something besides get naked and shoot people. Might even have become something good and permanent. But you know what? That was just greedy of me. I was going to be okay alone. Plus, I was pretty sure there was more money hidden in this building. And I knew I could make the shop a money-maker, not a big one, not enough to make me rich, but enough to support me and Poppy if I didn't find any more Ozzie cash.

And even more, I thought that working with Poppy on that, taking the shop online, talking about how to arrange things, letting her make some of the decisions, maybe expanding what we're selling . . . maybe that would help Poppy get back to normal in the next ten months. She loves a project; she can have Oddities to fix while she heals from what happened. And then she'll go to college and Rocky Start will just be a memory.

What I am saying is, I'm the luckiest woman I know with the best of all possible daughters who needs me right now. And I'm getting one more week with my excellent lover. Anything can happen in one week.

Actually, just about everything did happen in one week.

"Rose," Max said, his voice low. "I might not be back."

I kissed him on the nose. "You'll be back."

"You're that sure," he said, looking a little annoyed .

"Well, I have your wallet." I held it up, and he laughed.

Then he kissed me and took the wallet out of my hand while he had me distracted, and when I put my head on his shoulder and just spent some time in that perfect moment, he whispered, "I'll probably be back."

So I lifted his wallet again so he'd have an excuse to do that.

And I laughed, too.

THE END