Sawyer (The Stewarts of Skagway #4)

Chapter 1

Sawyer

Off-season in Skagway, Alaska, is my favorite time of year.

Why? Easy.

It’s all about the people.

Listen, Skagway hosts 1.7 million tourists from May to September, and during that time, over one thousand seasonal workers flood our little town to make big bucks with summer jobs. It’s a massive infusion of strangers into our hometown.

But by mid-October, the population has shrunk back to the 1,200 people who call Skagway—or, in my case, nearby Dyea—their permanent home…and it stays that way ( thank Christ ) until the cruise ships start arriving again in the spring.

Now, don’t get me wrong…I love the tourists.

I love their enthusiasm.

(Yes, sir, I agree. Alaska is the last American frontier!)

I love their stupid questions.

(No, ma’am, I’m sorry, but we don’t have polar bears or penguins in Skagway.)

And I absolutely, positively love their money. I mean, where else can you work a full-time job for four months and make a comfortable annual income?

But by October, I’m exhausted.

My whole family is exhausted.

And we’re ready for an extreme change of pace.

I start noticing the population change in mid-September: fewer tourist buses and vans pass me as I drive to Skagway on the Dyea Road. I see fewer and fewer backpackers walking from the ferry terminal up to the Chilkoot Trail head. I feel it in my workload, too. No one wants to go to Whitehorse or Dawson City in September when it won’t clear fifty degrees on an average day.

With no more overnights booked, I start helping Paw-Paw and Dad with improvements around the campground, or even— blech —lead a few Skagway city tours like (the dreaded) Beers, Brawls, and Brothels .

By the end of September, “The Days of ’98” musical on stage at the Fraternal Order of Eagles, which is a cruiser favorite, offers a last performance, and most of the Skagway restaurants, bars, boutiques, and museums wrap things up for the season.

By the month of October, when the seasonal help is long gone and during which only ten cruise ships will dock ( as opposed to July when there are more than 115 ships! ), Skagway starts feeling more and more like any other small American town.

Yoga starts up at the Rec Center, and book clubs get going at the library. They show Saturday matinees at the Presbyterian church, and Ms. Donovan, my seventh and eighth grade teacher, starts getting her famous Halloween decorations ready. ( Last year, her front yard was Harry Potter-themed. ) And then comes Yuletide, one of the biggest celebrations of the year in Skagway, just around the corner in December.

Contrary to popular belief—mostly held by the folks asking to see polar bears and penguins—Skagway isn’t covered in a blanket of white from Halloween until St. Patrick’s Day. From November to March, we only get about thirty days of snow, resulting in a grand total of forty-five inches. More than Seattle? Sure. More than upstate New York? Not even close. ( I don’t know how those poor bastards do it .)

But nowhere is the change from summer to fall more stark and obvious than in the town of Skagway itself, where I recognize everyone I see as I drive to the local IGA market on a sunny Saturday afternoon to pick up groceries for Gran.

Bruce Franks, owner of the Purple Parsnip, stands on the boardwalk in front of his famous restaurant instructing the painters who are giving his storefront a fresh coat of lavender.

Across the street, my brother-in-law, Joe Raven, leans against a post in front of the True Value, chatting with the proprietor, Jasper Fullerton.

A few doors down, Joe’s cousin, Sandra Clearwater, is having a late lunch alfresco with Andi Jones, who runs the Kozy Kone, and Avery Wells, the Borough Clerk for Skagway.

Next door to them, I see my best friend’s dad, Skip Morgan, hosing down the e-bikes he’s been renting to tourists all summer. No doubt they’re about to go into storage for the next six or seven months. I think I heard that his son Quinn’s coming back to town soon. I should shoot him a text and see if he wants to tie one on, off-season style.

I turn onto State Street, waving at Aaron Adams, who works with Joe, and slide into an open parking spot right out in front of the IGA. I cut the engine and grab Gran’s list off the dashboard…

…catching a glimpse of someone that knocks the actual wind from my chest.

Red hair. Green eyes. Tight bod. About five-foot-four.

Poison Ivy.

I reach up and rub my eyes like they do in the movies, and when I open them again, there’s no one in sight. The door to the store is closed, and no one’s coming or going.

“I’m seeing things,” I mutter to myself, shoving Gran’s list in my pocket and pulling my keys from the ignition. “That wasn’t her.”

How do I know it wasn’t her ? Because she doesn’t come to Skagway in the off-season. Never has. Never will. At least not as far back as I can remember, and that’s pretty much forever. The summer season—with its mega-wealthy tourists and their generous, omnipresent dollars—is far more her style.

I slam the truck door behind me, loping across the street to the store, but now, all I can think about is Ivy Caswell.

Beautiful, rich and smart, she’s my dream girl and my nemesis all in one, and has been ever since I can remember.

I first met Ivy about twelve years ago when our dad enrolled Parker and me at a weeklong summer Bible camp at the Presbyterian church. I knew all seven of the kids who showed up that morning, except for her. With her blazing red hair pulled back in two tidy braids and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks, I would’ve remembered her if we’d met before. She was the cutest girl I’d ever seen. Only nine years old, and I was instantly smitten.

Ms. Clearwater, who’d been my third-grade teacher the year before, had instructed me to pair up with Ivy for a craft activity.

“Sawyer Stewart,” she’d said, “this here is Ivy Caswell. Ivy’s visiting her aunt and uncle from Fairbanks. Let’s show her a real Skagway welcome, huh?”

I had no idea what a “real Skagway welcome” was, but I’d seen Bruce’s show at the Parsnip more than once. Taking off the Fly Fish Alaska! baseball hat on my head, I’d engaged in what I thought was a deep and elegant bow and announced in a booming voice, “Welcome to Skagway, little lady!”

Ms. Clearwater had rolled her eyes.

The rest of the kids at Bible camp, Parker included, had snickered.

But Ivy Caswell had grinned a gap-toothed smile at me and curtsied, just like the waitresses who played bawdy ladies in Bruce’s show.

“Thank you, kind sir!” she’d answered with a little giggle.

The whole world had melted away in that instant. There was me, in hand-me-down jeans, a T-shirt, and flip-flops, doing a dumb bow, and Ivy, in a blue and pink plaid sundress and white sandals, curtsying back to me.

I was pretty sure life couldn’t ever get any better than that.

“Afternoon, Sawyer!” calls Neena Antonov as I enter the store. I heard she got promoted to Assistant Manager recently, and sure enough, the shiny gold name badge on her red smock says as much.

“Hey, Neena. Congrats on the new job. Everything good?”

“Oh, yeah,” she says, giving me the usual lusty once-over with her dark eyes. “ You’re looking good, lil’ Sawyer.”

I wink at her. “Not nearly good enough for you!”

“Flirt!” she crows, cackling with glee. Neena is Harper’s age—a decade older than me—which means I’ve known her forever. “I’m too old for you.”

“How’s the little one?” I ask. Neena had a baby last fall. “She’s real good. Stays with Sandra Clearwater while I’m at work.”

“Glad to hear it.”

I grab a shopping cart and pull Gran’s list from my pocket.

“Shopping for the fam?” she asks.

“Yup.”

“Need any help?”

“Neena,” I say, “I’ve been coming to this store since I was in diapers. What do you think?”

“Sassy,” she says. “I like it.”

She turns back to the manager’s desk by the checkout counter, and I head into the dairy and produce area. The former is well-stocked. The latter is starting to thin out. There are still potatoes, onions, carrots, and apples, but fresh greens are getting sparse now. It’s impossible to grow them locally and expensive to ship them up. Luckily, back at home, we have a small portion of our barn that my father recently converted to an indoor greenhouse. We’ll have greens all winter long.

As I round the aisle, I find a young girl staring up at a rainbow of cereal boxes. Jenny Caswell. Coach Caswell’s older daughter and Poison Ivy’s cousin. That’s who I must’ve seen walking into the store. At twelve years old, she’s about five feet tall now, only a few inches shorter than her older cousin.

“Hey, Jenny!” I call to her. “Did you grow a whole foot this year?”

She turns to grin at me, her metal braces on full display. “Hi, Mr. Stewart. Yep! I’m the tallest in my class.”

“I believe it!”

Putting her hands on her hips, she tilts her head to the side. “I’m dating Travis Clearwater.”

“Sandra’s son?”

Like many indigenous women, Sandra Clearwater kept her maiden name and passed it down—along with her clan and nation—to her children. Most people even call her husband Bart, who’s last name is actually Shriver, Bart Clearwater , and it doesn’t seem to bother him at all.

“Yep. We’re totally in love.”

“Aren’t you a little young to be dating?” I ask her.

“Yes, she is,” confirms a voice from behind her. “ Way too young!”

I look over Jenny’s shoulder to see two more red heads join us in the boxed goods aisle—Jenny’s pint-sized little sister, Vicky, and the girls’ older cousin…Ivy.

Shit! It was her!

“S-Sawyer,” she says, stopping in her tracks. “H-Hi.”

I watch Ivy’s face as she stares at me—the way her pupils dilate, making her eyes less green and more obsidian—and the way she licks her lips. Her fucking lips. I know exactly how they feel pressed against mine. The taste of her haunts me fucking daily.

“Ivy!” I exclaim, dragging my gaze away from her lips and back to her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Grocery shopping.”

“No. I mean…why are you here ? In Skagway? In the off-season?”

She scoffs, toying with the Denali-sized diamond on the fourth finger of her left hand. “Am I not allowed to be in Skagway in October?”

“You can be wherever you want to be,” I say, sliding my eyes from that fucking ring back to her face. Her pursed lips remind me of our last conversation and make me feel churlish. I cross my arms over my chest. “I’ve just never seen you here after Labor Day.”

“Whatever.” She looks away from me dismissively.

I glance down at Vicky, who’s eight years old and holding Ivy’s hand. “Hey, lil’ one.”

“Hey, Mr. Stewart,” she says. She doesn’t smile at me. “Mama’s sick. Ivy’s helping.”

I look back at Ivy, whose face slips for a second before she lifts her chin. Squatting down, she looks into her cousin’s scared, wide eyes, and pulls her close for a hug. “She’s gonna be okay, Vix. I promise.”

“You can’t promise that,” says Jenny, hands still on her hips, though her smile has faded. “Cancer is a motherfucker.”

“Jenny!” exclaims Ivy, standing back up. “Don’t say that word!”

“I can if I want,” snaps Jenny, marching out of the aisle and disappearing from sight.

Ivy’s cheeks are red when she shrugs. “She’s having a tough time.”

“I didn’t know Priscilla was sick,” I say, feeling awful for Coach Caswell’s wife, who often baked cookies for my high school lacrosse team. “I’m so sorry.”

“She’s doing chemo at home,” Ivy tells me, running her fingers through Vicky’s red hair. Vicky leans her head against Ivy’s hip, blinking her eyes before closing them. I suspect she’s on the verge of tears.

“Vicky,” I say, “did you know that Ms. Antonov loves giving kids free candy when they shop at the IGA?”

Her eyes open. “She does?”

“Oh, yeah!” I say. “She keeps a basket of suckers under the manager’s desk.”

I pray that Neena has kept up her sister’s tradition of giving out lollipops to kids “in the know.”

“Could I ask her for one?” Vicky looks up at Ivy.

“Sure, you can.”

“Tell her Sawyer Stewart sent you!” I tell her.

“Okay,” she says, finally cracking a smile. “I will!”

As she scampers away, I catch Ivy sizing me up. After a second, she smiles, shaking her head as she crosses her arms over her chest.

“Sometimes I forget how charming you can be.”

“You’re good at underestimating me.”

My eyes flick to her ring again, and I’m glad when she shoves her hand into her jacket pocket to hide it from me. She tilts her head to the side, her eyes softening as she scans my face.

“Sawyer…”

My grandmother’s list is still in my hand, and I hold it up between us like it can protect me. “Gotta finish this shopping.”

She nods, her face tightening. “Yeah. Me too.”

“Tell Pris that we’ll be praying for her.”

“I will.” As I step forward to pass her, Ivy’s hand lands on my arm, stopping me. She squeezes lightly. I can smell her fucking perfume from this close. Honeysuckle . Fuck me. Her voice is low and soft. “Thanks for being so nice. Vicky’s sad, and Jenny’s impossible.”

As someone who lost his own mother when he was younger than Vicky, my heart sure goes out to those two little girls. It’s an awful lonely world without your mother in it with you. I hope like hell they never have to know that loss.

I look down at her hand in time to see it slide away.

“S-Sorry,” she whispers. “See you around?”

I look up to catch her biting her lower lip. It makes my heart flutter like it always does, but I won’t do a damned thing about it this time. The minute she flashed that ring at me in June, I gave up on her and walked away. She was officially taken, and not by me.

“Sure, Ivy,” I say softly, pushing past her. “I’ll see you around.”

***

Ivy

Oh, my heart.

My dumber than dumb heart.

Vicky sprints back to me with a sucker in her mouth while Jenny takes quasi-suggestive selfies of herself in front of the ice cream case, and all I can think about is the fact that Sawyer Stewart is two aisles away and wants absolutely nothing to do with me.

“Girls,” I mutter, “let’s just get ice cream and go. We can order takeout for dinner instead.”

“Thank God,” says Jenny. “Your cooking sucks.”

“Thanks,” I say, giving her a look which she ignores.

“Pizza?” asks Vicky, her big green eyes a mirror of mine.

“Sure,” I say, opening the freezer door and grabbing a half gallon of Breyer’s chocolate chip. “Pizza it is.”

We pay for the ice cream, which Neena places in a plastic bag for me.

“How’s your aunt?”

“She’s sick a lot from the chemo,” I tell her.

“That happens,” says Neena. “You know what? Come back tomorrow, hon. I’ll get a few things together for her. We have a good tea for settling the stomach…and I know a broth that could help, too. Does she like smoothies? My cousin has a few good recipes. When my uncle had…”

Neena is super kind, and I so appreciate her help, but I’m anxious to go. I really don’t want to bump into Sawyer again.

“That would be amazing, Neena!” I tell her. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Great. I’ll put on my thinking cap.”

I offer her a rushed smile as I herd the girls into the grocery store vestibule. Jenny pauses at the “Community Events” bulletin board.

“There’s a movie tomorrow night at the Parsnip,” she says. “What’s Practical Magic about?”

“I don’t know,” I answer, though I recognize Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock on the flyer. “You wanna go?”

She looks at me over her shoulder, wrinkling her nose like I stink. “With you?”

“Yes. With me.”

I’m trying really hard to be patient with her, but my experience with kids is slim, and Jenny, who has always adored me to the point of hero worship, has been really bratty since I arrived to help out last week. It’s like she thinks I’m trying to replace her mother, when all I’m trying to do is lend a hand while my aunt does her best to get better.

“I wanna go to the movies! Can I go?” asks sweet little Vicky.

“I don’t think so, muffin. It’s PG-13.” A different flyer advertises a kids’ Halloween movie at the Rec Center next weekend. “But I can take you to see Hotel Transylvania next Saturday, okay? Looks like they’re having a popcorn machine and everything. It says you can even wear your costume!”

“Yay! Okay!”

“I guess I’ll go with you tomorrow,” says Jenny softly, staring at Nicole Kidman. “She’s got red hair. Like us.”

“I’ll clear it with your dad,” I say, “but I’m sure he won’t mind. He can spend the afternoon with your mom and Vix.”

“More board games,” mutters Vicky.

As I turn to leave, another flyer catches my eye.

AUDITION FOR SKAGWAY’S WINTER PLAY: WUTHERING HEIGHTS!

A NEW STAGE ADAPTATION WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY brUCE FRANKS!

Interesting . I thought Bruce’s interests leaned more toward Westerns, not classics.

Wuthering Heights has always been a favorite story of mine. It’s so tragic and romantic and devastating. I can just imagine how well it would lend itself to the stage. And while I’m no Nicole Kidman or Sandra Bullock, I was an active member of the theater and film clubs at college, participating in stage productions and starring in student films regularly.

I lean forward and rip off a tab from the bottom of the flyer, drop it in my purse, and follow my cousins out the door.

***

“How’s she doing?”

I peek my head through the cracked door of my uncle and aunt’s bedroom, and my Uncle Alan looks up from the bed where he’s lying beside my aunt. She’s tucked against his side, her bald head wrapped in a colorful turban, and her eyes closed in slumber. She looks peaceful. I’m grateful for that. This morning’s treatment was hard on her.

“She held down some toast,” he whispers, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “Where were you three?”

“Went for a walk. Grabbed some ice cream,” I say. “Vix wants pizza for dinner again.”

“Then order pizza.” His face is weary. “That’s fine.”

“Can I make something for Aunt Pris?”

“Nah,” he says, shaking his head. He glances down at her, his eyes filled with equal parts worry and love. “She won’t be up for hours.”

“Neena at the IGA is putting together a bag of teas and broths for me to pick up tomorrow.”

“That’s kind of her. What are the girls up to?”

“Watching a movie and coloring mandalas. I told them to stay quiet, if possible.”

“You’re a godsend, Ivy.” He looks up at me. “I know I must sound like a broken record, but—”

“I want to be here, Uncle Alan,” I tell him. “I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

“I wish I could pay you something.”

“Come on. We’re family. I wouldn’t accept a dime. I love you guys.”

He sighs. “I know that. And we love you, too. But you should be starting your post-college life in Juneau. Planning your wedding. Digging into your internship. Instead, you’re trapped here…”

“Hey,” I say, holding up my hand to stop him. “I’m not trapped anywhere. Juneau will still be there when she’s better, okay? It’s just on hold for a little bit.”

“Your father’s not happy about your being here. He’s called me twice now offering to pay for a professional nurse so you can get on with your life.”

“Aunt Priscilla wouldn’t want a stranger in her house, and we both know it.” My uncle is the younger of the two siblings and has always been intimidated by his big brother’s wealth and success. “Don’t worry about Dad. His bark is worse than his bite. You know that.”

“Well, thanks for everything, Ivy. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

And I don’t know what I would have done without you and Aunt Pris , I think.

“No problem,” I tell him. “I’m going to get the girls’ laundry going. Get some rest, okay? I’ll wake you up for dinner.”

He nods, placing his glasses on the bedside table and shutting his eyes as I pull the bedroom door closed behind me. I stop in my cousins’ room, collecting the dirty clothes hamper from their closet and heading down the basement stairs to the washer and dryer.

As a lonely little girl, I looked forward to my summers with Uncle Alan and Aunt Priscilla all year; their house was a safe haven, and their affection was offered bountifully with no strings attached. Without their love and kindness, I have no idea how I would’ve survived my childhood.

It’s not that my mother and father were bad people, per se, but some people are cut out to be parents, and mine were not.

My father, Alexander, who is one of the wealthiest businessmen in Alaska, met and married my mother, June, twenty-two years ago after a wild night in Vegas. He was there for a convention. She was an entertainer. When sober, she used to claim that she was a model and dancer at that point in her life, but her frequent drunken rages about “what I had to do to make ends meet,” have led me to believe that her employment was probably a lot more sordid than modeling or dancing. She never forgave herself for whatever she did to pay the rent. From what I remember of her, which isn’t that much, she was full of rage, sadness, and regret.

She was a terrible match for my stoic, workaholic father who was fourteen years her senior. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant with me the weekend they met and married, they may have gotten their union annulled a few weeks later. Instead, my father handed her a handful of platinum credit cards, installed her in his austere Fairbanks mansion in the Alaskan wilderness, and proceeded to ignore her.

He worked hard and got wealthier.

She drank more and got lonelier.

And I was raised by a revolving door of housekeepers, maids, nannies, and babysitters, who inevitably quit after a few months of my father’s long absences and my mother’s erratic behavior.

The year I turned eight, my mother left. One day she was there, and the next she was gone. She left a note saying that she couldn’t stand another minute in Fairbanks and was returning to Vegas. She said she loved me and always would, but that I would be better off without her. That was it. I never saw her or heard from her again.

My father, who was away on business at the time, came home for a week, trying to track her down without success. Uncertain of how to care for an eight-year-old child on his own, he decided to send me to Skagway to spend the summer with his younger half brother—an uncle I’d never met and didn’t even know I had. I still remember stepping off the private plane, my hand clasped firmly in that of a hired flight attendant, who’d accompanied me south. I had no idea whose face to seek as we entered the airport terminal together. In the end, it was my uncle’s fiery red hair that caught my eye and felt familiar. It was the same brassy shade as my father’s and my own.

Wearing sandals, jeans, and a sweatshirt ( an outfit my own father wouldn’t be caught dead in ), he’d squatted down in front of me.

“I bet you’re Ivy,” he’d said, looking me straight in the eyes. It had made me feel seen by an adult, maybe for the first time in my whole life.

“Yes, I am.”

“I’m your Uncle Alan,” he’d answered gently with a rueful smile.

“We have the same hair.”

He’d chuckled at that. “That we do.”

“My mom left.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that, Ivy. But I want you to know that you’re welcome here.” His smile had broadened. “We’re so happy that you’re spending the summer with us.”

I couldn’t remember anyone else ever being happy to spend time with me, and I didn’t know how to respond to his words. I’d nodded at him in wonder, he’d stood up and taken my hand, and that was how I’d started spending summers in Skagway.

My uncle’s warmth and kindness were a revelation to me from the start. In a way, I think it saved me. You only have to be loved by someone . A parent. A sibling. A grandparent. An uncle. As long as you truly matter to someone else, you can matter to yourself.

As I separate my cousins’ clothes into colors and whites, I wrestle with my feelings about that first summer with my aunt and uncle.

I was so relieved to be away from the chaos of my depressed, alcoholic mother and workaholic, absentee father. Uncle Alan and Aunt Priscilla were newly married, terribly in love, young, and fun-loving. Aunt Pris would brush out my hair after my bath and read me books before bed. Uncle Alan took me on nature hikes and taught me how to swim. They made me eat my vegetables at dinner and showed me how to catch fireflies in the midnight sun. They showered me with deep and consistent love and gave me the stability I craved. I was happy in Skagway. I was happier than I’d ever been before.

But I missed my parents, too. They were all I’d ever known, and they were flawed, yes, but I still loved them. (Kids are supposed to love their parents, right? Even bad parents. Even broken ones.) I’d always wished that my mother would get better, and we could be a happy family like the ones I saw on TV. Instead, she’d given up on me, on my father, and on the possibility of us ever being a normal family. I dreaded my return to Fairbanks. I had no idea what I’d be returning to.

It was hard to say goodbye to my aunt and uncle and harder still to return home, which felt lonelier and more remote than ever before. My father had enrolled me in a private Montessori school for third grade. Driven to and from school by chauffeurs, fed breakfast and dinner by housekeepers and loosely monitored by babysitters during my father’s frequent business trips, my life fell into a routine. I’d see my father now and then when he was actually around—on the occasional weekend between tee times and conference calls, and on holidays like Christmas. But the one thing I could count on was that every year, when school ended and Memorial Day rolled around, I was sent back to Skagway for the summer, for my favorite time of the year.

After spending this past summer in Skagway working my eighth and final season at the Kozy Kone, I returned to Fairbanks in September to pack up my belongings for my move to Juneau. With my father’s enthusiastic blessing and generous financial assistance, I had purchased an apartment with my fiancé, Clark Clement Rupert III, and I was starting an internship at the state capitol with his father, Clark Clement Rupert Jr., the current Lt. Governor of Alaska.

But those plans were placed on hold when I learned about Aunt Priscilla’s diagnosis. At the beginning of September, she was diagnosed with stage IIA cervical cancer, for which—thank God and every angel on high—there was a very promising survival rate. But after surgery, she’d have four to six months of chemo at home. She’d be sick and weak from the drugs and need help.

While my aunt took a sick leave from her job at the high school, my uncle still needed to show up for work every day. They depended on his paycheck and insurance benefits. My young cousins couldn’t be expected to pick up the slack of housework and errands. My aunt and uncle would be reliant on friends to help with the house and the girls…or I could step in to help.

I knew it would upset my father deeply if I put my Juneau plans on hold. And there was a time, not so long ago, when making my father happy was the most important thing in my life. I wouldn’t have risked upsetting or disappointing him. I’d sacrificed a great deal, in fact, in my need for his approval and in the pursuit of his love.

Not this time.

There was no way I could start my new life in Juneau when my uncle, aunt, and cousins needed my help in Skagway. I packed my bags, said goodbye to Clark, and flew north.

So, here I am in Skagway during the off-season. I don’t mind. I’m grateful to be useful to people who have been so kind to me, and I don’t intend to leave until Aunt Priscilla is in remission and strong enough to manage things on her own. In the meantime, I’ll do whatever I can to make things easier for her. I’ll get the girls ready for school, keep the laundry moving, buy the groceries, cook the meals, order the takeout, run the vacuum…

…and do my best to avoid any more run-ins with Sawyer Stewart.

I look down at my engagement ring, plop a load of whites into the washer, add the bleach and detergent, and press START.