My Way Home (St.Gabriel Series Book 1) (St. Gabriel Series) Read Free Page B

picked up the folded piece of paper, knocking the key to the floor. My name was written on the outside and something was written on the inside that I couldn’t make out, too little, too blurry—days of crying will do that.
    Oh, well.
    It was just then, this I remember with crystal clarity, that I looked up at the mirror hanging above the entry table and was frightened by the hag that stared back at me.
    Five-day-old mascara circled her swollen, baggy, bloodshot eyes and streaked down her face, over her chin, and faded away on her neck. Dry crusties lined her nostrils. Greasy strands of black hair stuck up and out from her head. Below her head, bare shoulders. Further exploration down her body, my body, revealed bare-nakedness, except for a pair of polka-dot socks.
    The sight brought me into the present and to some sense of consciousness of my current situation. I panicked.
    No, no one can see me like this, especially not Race. Not Sarah Burns’ Race Coleman.
    I rushed to the door and barricaded it with my body.
    “Cammy, you’ve had me worried sick. Open the door, right now!”
    “No, not now, Race. I’m fine, I promise. I just need to be alone. I want to be alone.”
    “Cammy, I want to come in.”
    “Why, Race, has something changed? Tell me, since Sunday, has something changed?”
    No answer.
    “You can’t come in. Not now.”
    “Cammy, promise me you’re all right.”
    What do you care? You’re in love with someone else. You’re divorcing me. No, I’m not all right.
    I wanted to say snotty things. If I could have thought of any, I might have. But that would have only kept Race on the other side of the door, inches from what I had seen in the mirror. And there was a smell that I was becoming increasingly aware of. I wanted him gone. Far away from what I had become in just a few short days.
    What day is it?
    “Yes, I promise, I’m fine.”
    “I’m going to call you later. Promise me you’ll answer the phone.”
    “Fine, call, I’ll answer.”
    Would he call? Maybe he was having second thoughts?
    Race did call later. He’d had no second thoughts. He was just worried about me. I tossed the phone on the bed, along with my body, and tried to take stock.

CHAPTER THREE
    What Do I Know
    I was forty-seven, moderately attractive, a homemaker, jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none type. I had thousands, thousands, and thousands of volunteer hours racked up and occasional odd job experience—waitressing, secretarial, various retail work at a clothing boutique, an antique store, a plant nursery. The list is longer, but you get the picture.
    I was the queen of amateur—home remodeler, gardener, photographer, painter, seamstress, upholsterer, home decorator, party planner, and wedding planner. That list is long as well but the stuff of resumes, slim pickings.
    Race had encouraged me to go back to school to get my Master's when the kids left for college. But I was content, and we were comfortable. My life had been going along according to my plan, until Race brought it to a screeching halt, a crash.
    It was all so overwhelming. How do you pick up the pieces in the wreckage? What do you do with the pieces that are left? Divorce tests everything you think you know about the people around you, your life, yourself. I knew nothing, nothing.
    “What do I know? What do I know?” I kept asking myself that question. I felt the answer was somehow the key to something. There had to be something I knew.
    Lost, so lost.
    We had a checking account with three months living expenses in it and a savings account with an additional six, maybe seven more. We had a modest retirement account, and Race had his retirement with the college. We owned a piece of property on Lake Kitchee. The cabin we had planned to have on the property was never built, but we had camped there many times. There was good equity in our home and a mortgage that was almost paid off a few times. Two college educations and a new roof thwarted our last attempt