I couldn’t afford to.
I simply kept going.
After Thomas died, there was one place I dreamed of owning.
A small piece of the Atlantic coastline.
Thomas and I used to rent a modest beach cottage every September. We didn’t need expensive restaurants or elaborate entertainment. We liked walking barefoot along the shore, buying fresh shrimp from the local market, and sitting together watching the water change colors as the sun went down.
He used to say, “One day, Barb, we’ll have a balcony where the ocean is the only thing on our schedule.”
We never got that chance.
So five years after his death, when I found a two-bedroom condo on the fourteenth floor of a beautiful coastal building, I bought it.
With my own money.
Money saved from decades of overtime, careful investments, and vacations I had postponed.
I didn’t inherit the condo.
Nobody gave it to me.
Every square foot represented something I had worked for.
I furnished it slowly, choosing pale blue curtains, comfortable linen sofas, and a beautiful oak dining table that reminded me of the one Thomas and I once admired in a furniture store.
I kept a framed photograph of him beside the balcony doors.
In it, he was smiling into the camera, his gray hair blowing wildly in the beach wind.
That photograph was the first thing I brought into the condo.
The second was my favorite coffee mug.
One week every year, I went there alone.
It was my sanctuary.
And this year, I had barely been there forty-eight hours when Harper decided my sanctuary was available for redistribution.
The first warning came around lunchtime.
I was sitting on the balcony reading a mystery novel when my phone rang.
Harper.
I considered letting it go to voicemail.
That might sound terrible, but conversations with my daughter-in-law rarely began with a simple inquiry about my well-being.
Usually, there was a favor waiting somewhere beneath the pleasantries.
A request to babysit their dog.
A suggestion that I contribute to an expensive family celebration.
A reminder that Mark was stressed about work and could use financial help.
