Chapter 3
One month later
I slide the key in the lock of my new apartment but pause before I open the door.
visible in the frame, I snap a photo and send it to Minnie with a caption that reads: I made it!
She’s doing a postgrad seminar at Oxford for a few months, but when I told her I was moving to Chicago, I swear I heard her
cheer from the other side of the ocean.
She did make an offhanded comment that if I really want to “get my groove back,” I should move somewhere tropical and have
a torrid affair with a Michael B. Jordan look-alike.
Minnie is twenty-three now, and I love that she’s old enough to be my friend, but some subjects are still just too weird to
discuss with her. My nonexistent love life is definitely one of them.
Finding my journal that night unlocked something in me. I finally understood what Dr. Baskin meant—nothing is going to change
unless I change it.
So this is me. Changing it.
I’m terrified—but strangely excited.
Dr. Baskin told me once that bravery isn’t the absence of fear. It’s feeling the fear but doing the thing anyway.
This feels brave. It also feels a little crazy.
I secured the apartment before I even sold the house—something that happened in record time—and with Minnie’s help over FaceTime, we went through everything, keeping things we wanted and selling or donating everything else. It was sad, and hard, and stressful, and nostalgic.
I had my neighbor help me remove the trim piece where we’d marked Minnie’s varying heights so I could take it with me. That
stuff was never important to anyone else, plus John’s mother hated that I marked up the trim.
I did it anyway. One tiny rebellion. It was—and still is—important to me.
Once we were done, and once I shut the door behind me for the last time, I felt . . . free.
I always wanted to live in Chicago. When I was in college, this city was always supposed to be my next step. After a twenty-four-year
detour, I’ve finally arrived.
I’ve only seen the apartment in photos, and now that I’m here, I take it all in. It’s an end unit in a horseshoe-shaped brick
building and there’s a beautiful courtyard in the center that’s clearly been well-tended. You’d never know that on the opposite
side of the building is a partially obstructed, distant view of Lake Michigan and a close-up view of the skyscrapers that
populate Chicago’s famous skyline.
My new apartment building, The Bexley, is only two stories tall, and each of the apartments has an exterior door facing the
courtyard. Flower pots and welcome mats and benches and chairs are neatly positioned around the space, and there’s a patch
of grass in the center, making the whole area social and private at the same time.
It’s the middle of March, not quite spring, and there’s a crispness in the air despite the sunshine beaming down into the
courtyard.
I don’t know what I expect, but I’m struck by a wave of something that feels a lot like . . . possibility.
Well, that’s a feeling I haven’t felt in a long time.
My plan isn’t overly fleshed out. More of a loose outline.
Honestly, it’s still just number three on my list in my journal: “I want to live in a new city.”
It’s not even, like, 12 percent of a plan.
A point John was quick to point out when he found out I’d sold the house. He’d shown up as I was hauling a giant box down
the stairs, and because he didn’t seem to remember—or care—that he no longer lived there, he let himself in.
Instead of helping, he stood there watching.
When I finally reached the bottom of the stairs, I blew out a breath and looked at him. “Wow, thanks for the help.”
“Just want you to see what it’s going to be like when I’m not around,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and walked toward the kitchen. “Right, because you’ve been so reliable since you moved out,” I said over
my shoulder.
As expected, he’d followed me into the kitchen. “What are you thinking, Claire? Amelia told me you think you’re moving to
Chicago?”
“No,” I said, aware and annoyed that he’d used our daughter’s given name—the formal one that suited his family—and not the
nickname I’d given her practically since the second she was born.
“No?”
“I don’t think it,” I said, vaguely gesturing to the rest of the boxes strewn about. “I’m doing it.”
“That’s a bad idea.”
“I didn’t ask your opinion.”
“The crime there is terrible,” he said. “It’s like the Wild West.”
“It’s really not.”
He continued as if I was just there to listen to him talk and not be a part of the conversation. “And it’s expensive. Really
expensive. Especially in the city—are you going to get a job?”
I smiled right at him and shrugged.
“Do you have a budget?” he asked. “My alimony check will only go so far.”
I stopped briefly. “Here’s the great thing about divorce, John. You don’t have to care. You don’t have to wonder, or worry,
or have an opinion about anything I do anymore, ever.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and studied me. “You haven’t thought this through.”
I sighed and pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
“I’ll figure it out,” I’d said, with far less conviction than I intended to. But honestly! I’m forty-six years old. A competent,
capable woman. I steeled my jaw and leveled my gaze. “Everything is figure-out-able.”
He’d stared at me like he couldn’t believe what I was saying. “Did you read that on a poster somewhere? You’re making a huge
mistake.”
A plaque in HomeGoods, actually, but I didn’t tell him that.
What if John’s right? What if this whole plan is going to crash and burn?
I shake myself into the present. I’m still holding the key in my hand.
The house sold in record time. The sale set me up for at least a year to make things figure-out-able.
I’m here. With a new apartment. In a new city. In a new state.
In a new life.
The thought is equal parts terrifying and exciting, but I shove all the feelings aside as I push the key into the lock and
turn it.
The door swings open, both in front of me and metaphorically.
I breathe in and look around.
It’s my new place.
Mine.
I’d rented the apartment after finding it through a simple internet search. The photos made it look so gorgeous, I started to write my next chapter right there in the living room of my suburban house in Colorado.
But the photos didn’t do the apartment justice. I stand in the open doorway, gawking at the hardwood floors and the exposed
brick walls, admiring the rustic wood beams and all the natural light.
I can feel a smile spreading across my face. It’s even better than I imagined.
I take a few steps inside, suddenly energized despite the fact that I’ve been driving for almost two days straight, a pared-down
version of everything I own packed in a small trailer attached to my Jeep Cherokee.
“Oh, you made it!” A short woman with glasses and a rounded bob of sand-colored hair strolls in through the still-open door.
She’s wearing loose jeans and a striped pink button-down shirt with a pair of white tennis shoes, and her whole face lights
up at the sight of me.
“I heard this unit had been rented, and when I saw you walk in, I thought, That must be her! Our new neighbor. I know because I know everyone around here.” Her Chicago accent is thick. I expect her to tell me about “da Bears” and pronounce
the word caught like cot.
Wasn’t it only yesterday I’d worked hard to get rid of that same accent? Yesterday and a million years ago.
“I’m Lorraine Ashby”—(Lah-rain, she says it)—“and I live across the courtyard in apartment 2.” She turns and points outside, indicating the apartment that
sits kitty-corner from mine.
When she looks back and smiles, I note the wrinkles around her eyes and across her forehead, wondering if it was years of
laughter that put them there.
“I’m Claire,” I say. “Claire Karadec.” It’s strange using my maiden name now, but a new season called for a new name.
“It’s nice to meet you, Claire.” She closes the door, steps over my suitcase, and walks into the living room. “Do you need
a tour?”
It occurs to me that I can probably find my way around the two-bedroom apartment on my own, but then I think about number two on my list: I want friends. Real ones.
I’m guessing Lorraine is at least two decades older than me, but that could be a good thing. Wisdom comes with age, and my
first impression is that she’s outgoing. Maybe she can teach me how to make friends, because I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten.
Without the common ground of my child’s activities or my husband’s work, it feels hard.
How do I make friends as an adult?
“Claire? Still with us?”
I look up and find Lorraine’s eyes fixed on me, her expression bright and inviting. I must’ve zoned out. I’ve been doing that
lately—the danger of overthinking.
It’s like I’m trying to calculate where each choice I make will lead so I don’t end up in a country club fountain with my
wet sweatpants falling down.
I fix my face with a kind smile and say, “Yes. Sorry! Ugh, I get lost in—” I wave a hand in front of my forehead. “I’d like
that.” I prop my suitcases against the wall and turn toward her.
“Good! Thought for a second you checked out.” She laughs. “So! This”—she gestures to the room we’re standing in—“is the living
room. Probably the space you’ll be spending most of your time in entertaining friends and family and so on, so eye-wise, this
is the best blank canvas you’ve got.” Lorraine quirks a brow in my direction.
If only you knew the truth, Lorraine . . .
I used to entertain. Heck, I used to plan galas. I used to have the means to care about things like that, but my budget these
days is exceedingly more modest. I have money, thanks to the sale of the house—nothing to sneeze at—but I’m trying to set
up a whole new life here.
Also, right now the only person I know in this city is standing in front of me.
I nod but stay quiet and follow Lorraine as she moves into the kitchen, spanning her arms out.
“Don’t you just love the space? It’s so open. Apartments are often cut up into little boxes.” She scrunches her nose in disapproval.
“I’d rather see everyone and be able to hold a conversation without shouting from one room to the next!”
I smile. I immediately like Lorraine.
“Did you see the courtyard on your way in?”
“Yes,” I say. “It’s beautiful! It’s one of the reasons I was attracted to this place.”
“It’s a shared space,” she explains, “where all the residents gather, meet, mingle. We’re a friendly bunch.”
I smile at that. I like the idea of knowing my neighbors.
“We have Miles to thank for how it looks. He lives in apartment 1, right across from you. Before he moved in, it was little
more than a patch of dead grass, and he took it upon himself to turn it into—well, what you see out there. I think he needed
a project to keep himself busy.” She says it as if I already know the backstory there and doesn’t give any more details.
Well, that’s intriguing.
Lorraine opens a drawer. “Watch this,” she says, as if she’s about to reveal a magic trick. She gives the drawer a hard push,
and it slows down halfway, then softly pulls the drawer front flush.
“Soft close! They’re all like that.” She smiles. “Modern conveniences with historical charm.”
Lorraine breezes through the space, showing me the small laundry room at the back of the apartment with an exterior door that
leads to a walking path.
“We’re just a short walk to the lake, so if you’re the fresh-air type, it’ll be great for you. Personally, I take my fresh
air sitting down.” She chuckles to herself and continues on up the stairs.
“Each unit is two stories. Two bedrooms, one full bath, one half. And then there’s a linen closet.” We’re standing in the hallway outside the bedrooms, and she looks at me. “Lots of space, don’t you think?”
“It’s actually a lot smaller than I’m used to.”
“Oh?” Her eyebrows shoot up. “Where’d you move from?”
I hesitate for a moment, then say, “Colorado.” I don’t offer any details because I don’t know how to share everything that
led me here without getting into the weeds with it.
“Ooh, Colorado. Where God vacations,” she quips.
I chuckle. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that. She’s not wrong. Parts of that state are divinely carved.
Too bad the majesty of the mountains was overshadowed by the emotional valley I was living in.
“Well? What do you think?” Lorraine asks as we walk back downstairs and into the living room.
I look around the cozy space and smile. “It’s perfect.”
And it is.
Well, I did it.
I’m here. Moved halfway across the country to a city I’ve always wanted to live in.
It’s a place where, so far, only one person knows my name.
Maybe I’ll get to the place where I can walk into a room and everyone calls out, “Claire!” like I’m a regular.
Cue the Cheers theme song.
I didn’t mind being known before.
But then my life imploded.
I’m having trouble sleeping. New place, new bed, new noises, but that’s not it.
I’m replaying the moment I first found out about John and the other woman at the gala.
It takes no effort to put me right back in that bathroom stall, listening. Roxie and Lainey are blathering on and on about someone’s husband having an affair.
It’s like it’s happening again. In the present. My heart races and my stomach feels hollow. My palms start to sweat, and I
have to get up and walk around just to remind myself that it’s not happening in the present.
It’s not now. It’s then. Rearview mirror.
I lived through that. I drove away.
I’m still alive. I survived.
And I’m determined to move forward.
My wounds are healing—one day at a time.
I met my first new friend.
Her name is Lorraine, and she’s older than me. A little bit of a busybody, but in a good way. I already like her and would
love to meet some of the other people in the building. Maybe she can introduce me.
She said the man across the courtyard is Miles. I want to know what made him work on the outdoor space. It’s beautiful. Is
it his job? Or a hobby?
How do I get a hobby?
Am I a person who likes art? Collecting ships in bottles? Do I love rock climbing? I want to find out.
I want a hobby. (Add to list.)
Maybe it’ll help me get to know myself better.