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came to get Marcie and she didn’t want to be rescued,” Mel said. “I didn’t think it would help Marcie’s cause much. Anyway, so much for me giving up adrenaline. I have to admit, though—most days are peaceful. It’s just that when they’re not, they’re really not.”

      “Frankly, I could do with a little excitement,” Erin grumbled. “I swear to God, if one more person sends me an e-mail about taking time to smell the roses.

      Mel just laughed at her. “Erin, don’t be talked into feeling a certain way. If working is what’s fun for you—then work!”

      “You’re not going to lecture me on balance?” she asked with a smile.

      “Don’t you have that? Family, friends, a getaway cottage in the mountains, an exciting job…?”

      “Tax and estate law?” Erin asked, wide-eyed. “I think the fact that I find that exciting is one of the things that people think is most disturbing!”

      “I wasn’t going to mention that.” Mel chuckled. “But if you find it exciting.

      Erin leaned toward her. “I’ve worked really hard,” she said earnestly. “I did the things I set out to do. I have a very large client base. You can believe the partners never suggest I’m working too hard. The firm takes a lot of their pro bono cases off the backs of my rich clients who are in trouble with the IRS. My client base is so valuable to them, I had to threaten to resign to get a leave of absence from the firm. I hadn’t taken more than a long weekend in ten years. Drew’s in residency and engaged to be married soon to a lovely girl. Marcie and Ian are very happy, and expecting their first baby at the end of the summer. The pressure is off! I can now relax and enjoy life more and I can’t think of one thing I want to do.”

      “Oh. My.”

      Erin leaned back. “It’s true. Don’t you dare tell anyone—but I haven’t been here two weeks yet and I’m so bored I can’t stand to wake up in the morning, facing another long, impossible, dull day! I’ve been putting in so many hours for so many years…”

      “Law school then a busy practice…” Mel said. “That’s been a long haul, I’m sure…”

      “It started way before law school. I was busy as a kid, needed to help at home.”

      Mel frowned. “Marcie mentioned you girls lost your parents young…”

      “Our mother died when I was eleven. Marcie was four years old. Drew was still in diapers.”

      Mel thought for a moment. “You must have done a lot of babysitting…”

      Erin laughed. “A lot? That was all I did. I hurried home from school to take over from the babysitter we’d hired, start dinner, wash and fold some clothes, get their baths, settle them down for the night. The sitter usually left things a mess and I didn’t want Dad coming home to that, he was already a wreck. Our dad tried, but he’d just lost his wife and it took him a good year to catch up with us.”

      “It hasn’t just been ten years since you’ve taken a vacation, has it?” Mel asked softly.

      “Dad died suddenly during my first semester of law school. I was still living at home, of course. Drew and Marcie were only thirteen and fifteen. It wasn’t a problem for me to have complete custody of them, at least.”

      “At what? Twenty-two?”

      “I was mature,” Erin said dismissively.

      “I’ll bet,” Mel agreed. “And now, having done a lifetime’s work in a third of a lifetime, you’re feeling a little put out to pasture? Like you don’t have a purpose anymore?”

      “Oh my God,” she said. “I couldn’t put it into words, but it’s like I have to take the summer to figure out how to be alone, and happy and content alone, because what I am now is alone.”

      “And you’re how old now? Thirty-five?”

      “Thirty-six.”

      “Erin, my darling—you’re thirty-six and you’ve been a mother for twenty-five years. You’re going through empty-nest syndrome.”

      “What?”

      “We make so many sacrifices to parent…we give up so much. Willingly, of course. It’s what most of us want to do—to have a child and make that commitment. Sometimes it comes as a blow when they say, ‘Okay, I’m all grown-up now. Back off and let me make my own decisions.’”

      “But…but I talk to Marcie every day, and Drew at least a couple of times a week. We’re still very close.”

      “Well, of course! They love you! But at long last they’re on their own. They don’t need you. You have all this time to make a new life…Because your old life is over…”

      “But I have women friends who load up a suitcase full of books or tapes or needlework and head off for a week of solitude and love it. Or go on these enormous walks through Ireland or hike the Grand Canyon and—”

      “Erin, for one thing—they didn’t start at age eleven. You’ve been dancing as fast as you can for twenty-five years, just trying to stay one step ahead.” She leaned toward Erin and grabbed her hand. “You were just a kid when you had to start being a mother to your siblings. And there’s a difference between getting away and feeling cast away. Besides, I bet you never had the luxury of finding great, fulfilling hobbies!”

      And Erin thought, I couldn’t try out for cheerleading, not that I could walk and chew gum at the same time. But there was after-school practice, and after school was dedicated to the kids. I could be on student council, but I couldn’t go to student-council camp. Well, Dad said I could, but the look on his face said it would be a huge burden and he ‘d worry about the kids without me there.

      But she’d never cared about that. Had she?

      “Yeah, my dad depended on me,” Erin said. “I was going to do that up here. Find a great fulfilling hobby of some kind. So far I haven’t thought of a thing.”

      “You’re still trying to cope with the loss. The empty nest.”

      “Really?” she asked. “You think that’s all it is? Empty nest?”

      “All?” Mel asked. “Erin, that’s a lot of loss. It’s a little death. Some women just blow it off. When their kids go off to college or get married, they just close the vents in their children’s rooms or turn those spaces into dens and sewing rooms. Other women really struggle and feel a lot of emotional pain. You were awfully young when you started mothering them.”

      “Huh,” she said. She took a drink of her cola. “Well, what am I supposed to do for fun now?”

      “Gosh, I don’t know,” Mel said. “There’s bound to be a period of adjustment. You’ve probably been going through a period of grief already and maybe you’re not quite done with that. Something will come to mind.” The door to the bar opened and a man in rough-sewn work clothes wandered up to the bar. Mel looked over her shoulder. Then back at Erin. “Can you tend bar?”

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