I had to make a home.

I had to heal my family.

I had to find me.

I had to let go of the old.

I had to pull myself together and start anew.

Chapter Five

Off and Running

“We got…a bowl.”

Alyssa announced this after she pulled said bowl out of its bag and protective tissue wrap and set it on the edge of the bar of my kitchen.

I stared at the bowl.

Josie, standing by Alyssa, spoke.

“It’s a nice bowl.”

“We’ve been shoppin’ all day, all over the county, and we bought…a bowl,” Alyssa countered.

“Decorating an entire house doesn’t happen in a day, Alyssa,” Josie informed her.

“I hear that,” Alyssa returned. “But you go to fifteen shops in three towns over a span of nine hours, you get more than…a bowl.” Then, even though I was wandering to my kitchen dazedly, my eyes still aimed at the bowl, I knew she was addressing me when she stated, “Girl, you got a couch and a bed. You don’t even have a TV. You gotta step this shit up.”

I stopped in the kitchen and took my eyes from that bowl. A beautiful bowl. No, an astonishingly beautiful bowl; big, wide, squat, the outside a rough slate gray, the inside lip a lustrous blue, so blue it was nearly black cascading into a indigo that was so gorgeous, in all honesty, it took my breath away.

Thus I’d bought the bowl, the only thing I’d bought after fifteen shops in three towns.

I moved my gaze to the sun setting over the sea.

It was still light, the hues shading the clouds baby pinks and buttercreams.

But I’d looked out those windows for two and a half weeks. I knew the shades would shift and change. There would be deep peaches, soft lavenders, blazing orange-yellows, startling fuchsias, cobalt blues…all reflected in the sea.

“Amelia, are you all right?”

I heard Josie’s question but I was staring at baby pink and buttercream.

“Babe,” I felt a light touch on the small of my back and Alyssa’s whispered words close to my ear. “You okay?”

“Syrah,” I murmured.

“Say what?” Alyssa asked, not moving from me.

I turned, dislodging her hand and looked between them. “The Syrah glasses from that shop by the cove. All the reds from there. Pinot Noir, Cabernet. I didn’t like their white wine glasses and the champagne flutes were abysmal. But I’m getting their red wine glasses.”

“Uh…is she sayin’ shit you get?” Alyssa muttered to Josie.

“She’s talking about those wineglasses at the Glassery,” Josie told her.

“She’s gonna buy different types of glasses for different types of red wine?” Alyssa asked.

“Shh, Alyssa! I’m sensing an epiphany,” Josie replied, lifting a hand and shaking it at Alyssa.

“That armchair, the beaten leather one with the tacks,” I kept going as if they didn’t speak. “That leather was so supple. Amazing. With the ottoman. Up on the landing.” I lifted my hand and pointed across the space at the large landing opposite the kitchen. “And an eighty inch TV, mounted on the wall. Big, so you can see it from anywhere in the room.”