“You better.” Dana gave her back a pat as Sara turned to get into the car.
Hands on the steering wheel, Sara’s gaze went to the second floor room that had been her home the past few months. Dana walked past the front of the car on her way to the office, waving as she went. Sara smiled and waved back, inhaling slowly around the churning sensation in her stomach. Her nerves were jittery with excitement and fear. It was time to say goodbye to another piece of her life and began a new one. Beginnings and endings; that’s what life was made of. Sara turned the key in the ignition and turned the car in the direction of Boscobel.
***
Sara saw with clarity she hadn’t been able to find before the time spent in Waupun. She knew she could love Lincoln without betraying Cole. Some things, like the blame she’d placed on herself for the loss of her husband’s life, weren’t so easily accepted. But she was trying and that was all she could do. Forgiveness, even for oneself, was earned. Sara was earning it with each thought of Cole that was happy instead of sad; with each smile she allowed herself, with every sunrise and sunset she gazed at with thankfulness; with every breath she felt worthy of instead of unworthy.
She’d been gone a little under three months and she’d been back over a week. It was unusually hot for September in Wisconsin; making her think even the weather could be confused at times. There had been no calls from Lincoln since her return and she wondered why that was. Had he known the exact day she’d come back to Boscobel or was it a coincidence that that was the day he’d decided she wasn’t worth waiting for? The thought made her heart painfully squeeze. Or maybe he was simply waiting for her. He’d waited so long already; too long. Knowing Lincoln had loved her for so years was dizzying, unbelievable.
Sara talked to Dana every other day. She made her laugh with her recollections of her marriage fiascos and her continuing search to find the thieving housekeeper at the motel. They both knew there wasn’t one. Dana’s employees were honest and trustworthy; it was just something to talk about and Dana was certainly a good storyteller. Even with the distance between them, they still had their coffee and doughnuts at eight on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays as they chatted about nothing of importance. The conversations were important; not the words spoken during them.
The house she’d found to rent was red with tan trim, small, and filled with unpacked boxes and new furniture. It fit her and Sara felt a relief upon entering it she hadn’t known whether she’d feel or not. It was time to get back to herself; the new self that was living without Cole and able to do so. She would make this home hers and only hers; leaving the ghosts of the past where they needed to be, in the past, in the place in her heart designated to Cole and her parents and their unborn baby; to love and not mourn.
Painting was easier and her finished art had more depth than it used to carry; the colors were bolder, and the peace she found didn’t fade as soon as she set the paintbrush down. Sara painted with her soul now. Every stroke of the paintbrush on canvas was a gift to those not with her; every painting a piece of her she would share with the world with joy and not sorrow or fear. Business was slow with her artwork at the moment; having been out of practice and contact with the art world for so long, but Sara was confident it would be steady again in time. Like her.
On one such day, as she painted, her mind drifted to the day she’d seen the ‘C’ in the blue paint and thought it an omen from Cole. Maybe it had been, but maybe it had been in a way different from what she’d thought. Sara set the paintbrush down and tried to recollect the exact shape of the splatter on the floor. Could it have been an ‘L’? Even then, had he been telling her something? Had she seen a ‘C’ at the time because she’d had to see that or because it truly had been? Did she know it to be an ‘L’ now because she wanted it to be or because it always had been? An interesting concept. The letter ‘C’ and the letter ‘L’ could be quite similar, depending on the hand that wrote them. Or it could have simply been a splotch of paint.