Me at 30's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

The new job started the following Monday. I wore clean pants and a button-up shirt I'd ironed the night before. The front office had carpet instead of concrete. A desk with a phone. A computer that wasn't mine. The manager showed me where to file papers and how to transfer calls. I sat down and answered the phone when it rang. I walked to the post office during my lunch break that first week. The brick building sat two blocks from the mill. I needed to mail a story submission to a magazine in Toronto. The line moved slowly. When I reached the counter, the clerk looked up and stopped. He said my name like a question. I hadn't seen him since high school. He worked here now. We talked for three minutes while the line grew behind me. He asked if I wanted coffee sometime. I said yes before I thought about it. We met twice that month. Then four times the next. He remembered things about me I'd forgotten. The way I used to write in notebooks during lunch. The year I won the writing contest at school. He asked about my kids. I told him the truth—that I was raising them alone and it was hard. He didn't look away. He said he thought I was doing something brave. When he proposed six months later, he gave me a small ring with a single stone. I put it on and felt something I hadn't felt in years. The possibility that I wasn't carrying everything by myself anymore. We married in Kingston in the spring of 1998. The ceremony was outside near the water. I carried white roses. My kids stood beside me in their best clothes. When the officiant asked if I took him, I said yes and meant it. The ring felt solid on my finger. That night I wrote in my budget book and added his income to mine. For the first time in three years, the numbers balanced. I closed the book and put it away. I wouldn't need to cut the phone plan this month. I wouldn't need to choose between rent and groceries. The weight I'd been holding alone was lighter now. Not gone, but shared.