Six
The mountains awoke crowned with a pink halo.
Leavenworth was scrubbed clean by a good night’s sleep—and people who’d banded together to clean up, fix up, and light up the town again.
London had secured a week’s worth of lodging on the west side of town.
Enzian wasn’t flooded, and it was hosting displaced locals while cleanup was underway.
As her coffee brewed, she leaned against the metal balcony rail, waiting.
For that first jolt of energy. For the warmth.
The best part of her day. This was the magic of Leavenworth—the quiet mornings before tourists emerged from their wine-tasting slumbers.
Crisp, clean air. The peace of being at peace.
Tomorrow was her birthday, but today—today was for getting organized and sneaking more box fans and dehumidifiers into the inn.
She'd ignored the world the night before. Now it came back to her—the text. Her boss. The ultimatum.
I’m sorry about your little inn, but I need you here.
If you can’t make it back by Thanksgiving, I’ll just find someone else.
Kissy face emoji.
Kiki didn’t understand emojis, obviously.
The coffee maker announced its completion with a long beep, and London warmed her hands on a full mug of liquid sunshine.
Little inn.
Oh, how very Kiki. Performative sympathy built around a subtle diminishment. Her specialty.
Of course you should be with your family. Just let me know when you’re done.
You did a great job with that project. Much better than last time.
Kiki’s job had felt important when she took it.
Necessary, even. It took her back to something well-worn that she could do in her sleep while running The Colchuck from afar.
She’d assisted celebrities in Los Angeles for years, each with their own pros and cons, but most were overall good experiences.
Organized chaos. Controlled emergencies.
Requests that could be solved with a phone call and a credit card.
When she moved to Seattle, the work had been merciful.
Harper had just left, and Kiki didn’t let her have time to wallow.
There was always something urgent. A dog to retrieve.
A flight to rebook. A special face cream from Indonesia with a purple label that simply could not be substituted.
It was easier to fix someone else’s problems than sit inside her own.
And the truth was, Kiki wasn’t boring. But she was optional. The Colchuck was not.
London set the mug down and grabbed her phone.
Kiki, I won’t be returning. I’ll send transition notes by the end of the day.
Send. Whoosh.
Her shoulders relaxed.
That felt good.
Now, she could focus. London pulled a small notebook from her laptop case and started a list.
FIFTY IN FIFTY
Bring The Colchuck back to life
Sign the divorce papers
Sell the inn
Sublet the townhouse
Visit one new country each month for the entire year
Go on at least one date in each new country
Kiss someone new
Mean it
Stop worrying
Start living
Lorraine’s British lilt sang through her head. Promise me you won’t forget to enjoy yourself.
She tapped the pen on the page.
2. Sign the divorce papers.
They were in a large envelope in the bottom drawer of her desk in Seattle.
She’d opened that envelope exactly once, read the contents, and stuffed the whole thing in the drawer.
Harper's lawyer had followed up three times before giving up.
Harper had texted as many times. Eventually they both went quiet—London because she couldn't, and Harper for reasons she'd stopped trying to understand.
It wasn’t that she wanted Harper back.
It was the finality of it. The admitting of defeat.
They’d been together nearly twenty years.
Two decades. To sign all that away with a few pages of legalese felt—wasted.
Signing those papers meant the version of her who believed in the permanence of vows had been na?ve.
It meant she’d spent her best years with someone who was supposed to be there for the worst.
She drew a small square next to the number. A place for the checkmark to go.
Not yet.
3. Sell the inn
The words looked so simple on paper. Procedural.
People sold houses. She’d been thinking about it for months.
It was practical. Sensible. Rebuild it. Then let it go.
It made sense to her, even if it wouldn't to anyone else.
Selling the inn was a clean break and a chance to start the second half of her life untethered.
People reinvented themselves all the time.
Fifty was the new forty, according to all the menopause influencers on Instagram. It could be done.
She double underlined that one.
7. Kiss someone new
The last time she’d kissed someone new was in The Wild Rose, Seattle’s infamous lesbian bar, three months before.
It was a sneak attack—she hadn’t seen it coming.
She’d been talking to a twenty-something with a unicorn tattoo on her bicep, asking its meaning.
Before she knew it, the woman was whispering in her ear.
She said she found London hot. That she loved an older, experienced woman.
Music blared. She was disoriented and kissing someone half her age in a bar.
London didn’t count that one. It was more like proving something. Not feeling something.
And that’s why “mean it” was an important number eight.
The last time she kissed someone new and meant it, she was twenty-nine.
There was a set builder she'd been watching for weeks—trying to figure out if the interest was mutual. Harper was hard to read. But on the backlot, right after a night tour passed by them, she found out. London could still taste that kiss—its electricity, its urgency. Could still feel Harper’s hand on the small of her back. London circled number seven.
Start living.
The hardest one. She’d been surviving for a year. Living felt risky.
But this list wasn’t about running away. Not about the logistics of turning 50. It wasn’t a bucket list. It was a reclamation.
# # #
Village Books was her escape. The place smelled like paper and patchouli, and a little bell over the door greeted everyone who walked in.
The wood floors creaked in the same spots they always had, and she’d been tucked into the travel section since its OPEN light clicked on that morning.
Taking notes. Thinking about a route. If all went well, she’d leave the States by late February and start south.
Spain, maybe Portugal. As the weather warmed, she’d go north.
People raved about Budapest. They said Copenhagen was super gay.
She pushed away thoughts that Harper would love Copenhagen.
She’d end somewhere exotic next Christmas. Thailand? Bali? It was an uncharted course—and that was the beauty of it all.
“London?” a meek voice inquired. Then, a tap on her shoulder.
London spun to face the voice, closing a copy of Offroad Iceland around her finger. “Hi?”
“You don’t remember, do you?”
“I'm sorry, I—” London looked closer. Something familiar in the eyes, the set of the mouth.
“It’s Bonnie. Bonnie Branton.” She kept her voice low beneath the classical music overhead.
“Oh my gosh, Mrs. Branton! I’m so sorry. I’m a little distracted these days. Of course I remember you.”
“How’s your mother?”
“Oh, about the same. She’s in the Cotswolds presently. But not really.”
“Horrible disease,” Bonnie said. “I’m sorry. You planning a trip?”
As they spoke, memories returned in pieces.
Tenth grade. English class. Mrs. Branton had been diagnosed with breast cancer that fall but didn’t tell her students.
She was gone for a while, and when she returned, she wore a blonde Dolly Parton-style wig.
No explanations. Just Shakespeare and diagrammed sentences, as usual.
London hadn’t thought of her in ages. Hard to believe it had been more than thirty years since those sonnets and short stories. “I’m thinking of taking a year to travel. I’ve always wanted to wander aimlessly and see what happens. Now that I’m single, that’s an option.”
Bonnie studied her former student for a moment. “Good for you. Go see the world while you’re young enough. One of my biggest regrets is not doing that. You have someone lined up to watch the inn?”
“Thanks,” London said. “Actually, I’m thinking of selling it. It flooded in the storm and I’m just here to put it back together. It’s time for someone else to take the reins.”
“Well, then, sell it beautifully.”
London nodded and waited for more.
Bonnie sensed the confusion. “You don’t strike me as the sort of person to leave something half done.”
“Guilty.”
“You were always stronger than you thought you were. And you were never meant for small edges, London. Even as a teenager. You were always plotting your way out of this one-stoplight town.”
“I was?”
“As I recall, yes. You were the only sophomore who turned a simple book report into an escape plan.” Bonnie smiled wryly.
Of course, now she remembered. London was convinced that On the Road was less about reckless boys and more about momentum.
About the ache of wanting more than you’d been handed.
How staying in one place was the fastest route to obsolescence.
She’d said so, more than once, to meet her required word count.
Mrs. Branton had left a note in the margins.
Red pen in her looping schoolteacher cursive.
You have a voice that wants distance. Don’t ignore that.
“Whatever you build next, build it because you want it, not because other people want you to.” Bonnie squeezed London’s shoulder.
Firm. Familiar. “I’ll let you get back to Iceland.
” She pointed to the staff recommendation card tucked below the Iceland book—Stand where fire meets ice—with a small hand-drawn volcano on it.
London waved after her former teacher and opened the travel guide. Her finger had marked the place of a photo of Jokulsárlón Glacier Lagoon. The place where icebergs break away and float before finding open water.
She traced the edge of the photograph with a finger.
Movement didn’t have to be dramatic. Sometimes it was slow, steady separation.
London closed the book and added it to her growing stack.
# # #
When she stepped back into the real world, it was snowing.
Again. This time, gently. Cinematic. Like she would turn the next corner and fall into the arms of a lover and laugh, their hair dusted with fluff and their teeth as white as the snow.
Like kids were ice-skating on a pond and parents sat nearby with hot cocoa ready.
Leavenworth’s storybook side was showing again.
“Hey, London,” a gravelly voice yelled after her.
“Hey, Joel,” she turned.
“I heard about the inn,” he locked step with her. “Ain’t that just the shit? Everyone’s freaking out about December. But we’ll get there. We always do.”
“Not great timing, huh?” London kept her pace up. A bright blue Genie Lift held a worker high in a tree in the park.
“Not at all,” Joel said. “Listen, we got pretty lucky. No real damage to the bakery. So, if you need some help, lemme know. Your pop was always there for us when we needed him. Once he pulled my kid’s truck out of the ditch on the Chumstick curve.
Didn’t even tell me. Kiddo felt so bad he fessed up about a week later. Real good guy.”
“That’s very kind of you. I don’t really know what I need yet.”
Joel stopped and looked into London’s eyes.
“You’ll get back on your feet. And if you need hands, the offer stands.
This town remembers what your family’s done for it.
Don’t forget that.” He gave her a firm hug and turned to go.
As he left, a woman sweeping the sidewalk in front of the chocolate shop waved.
Everywhere she turned, someone knew her. In her mind, history and knowing were dangerous. To be avoided, even.
What if knowing everyone’s past—and being there for each other—weren’t anchors at all? What if they were nets?
She’d spent a year trying to outrun this place. Trying to become invisible. To shrink herself small enough that the whispers wouldn’t find her.
But invisibility never built anything permanent. Her grandfather, Lars, hadn’t built The Colchuck alone. He had built it with borrowed ladders and returned favors. And community. Her father had run it the same way. Joel had just told her as much.
Her dad had left her a building without an instruction manual. He’d said things over the years, sure.
Be sure to turn off the hose bibs in the basement in early October.
You’ve got to clean the gutters every spring.
Don’t forget to fill the propane tank.
The rest, he’d said by example. Maybe rebuilding didn’t mean doing it alone.
Snow gathered on her shoulders, soft and steady. London tugged the beanie down lower on her head and pressed on toward the inn.