Audiobooks_Fiction_First person
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
nothing has to change. Is he kidding? Everything's changed. I'm a 52 year old widow, which is the last thing on God's green earth I ever expected to be. No, wait a minute. Rich is the last thing I ever expected to be. And evidently I'm that, too. A year has passed since Mark died, and I'm sitting in a conference room listening to his lawyer. Tell me that we really must settle the estate. Apparently, there is a socially acceptable number of days that widow can spend lying in bed, watching HD TV and eating take out. And I have passed that limit. How much is left, I say. And I know it's the wrong question. It sounds vulgar, grasping as if I really did marry an older man for the money, just like everyone of the country Club said. I did. Without touching the principal and without acquiring even the slightest risk, we can deposit $11,000 a month into your checking account, the lawyer says. On the one hand, my mind reels because it's a staggering amount of money for someone who owns her house and car outright. For a woman whose favorite food is pizza and whose idea of a vacation is visiting her best friend from high school and sleeping on the couch. But on the other hand, he's saying that even from the grave, Arc has put me on an allowance. Very generous allowance, but and allowance nonetheless. I know I'm lucky. I know The cash flow of $11,000 a month is what my daddy used to call a high class problem. But I have lived for too long in a world where everything is controlled and monitored and predictable. I know the number of steps leading into every medical building in Charlotte, North Carolina. I parked in the handicap spaces, run in and got wheelchairs and running back and counted how pills and become a master of low sodium cuisine. And I've made table scapes endless table scapes, which are like centerpieces, only bigger. They run down the full length of the table, and their purpose is to give a meal. Ah, theme table scapes cost a freakin fortune, and they take forever to dio. But they're my specialty. The task that's delegated to me at every charity dinner, sand dollars and blue glass in the summer, Goard's and leaves in the fall. Ali and Crystal in the winter Onda tulips wedged into overturned moss baskets in the spring. I know none of that sounds very original. In fact, I know it's a downright ordinary and that meals don't have to have themes. But years ago I did a table escape that everyone liked. And in the world of charitable causes, if you do something right one time, they expect you to duplicate it with the smallest possible variations for the rest of your life. After a while, I actually started to dream about table scapes, but that's not the point. The point is bad. I've spent the last 20 years of my life pretending to be a whole lot more conservative and stupider and nicer than I really am. You deserve a younger man, Mark said to me once, but he said it in bed. So he probably was talking about sex when he had the first heart attack and his doctors told him to be careful. We knew what that meant. That night I scooted over beside him and laid my head on his chest and hold him that this was all I wanted. He made a sad little grunt of disbelief. But it was true. I've always liked cuddling better than sex, and besides, when I married him, I knew what I was signing up for. I wanted a safe place, and Mark gave me one. According to this table full of lawyers, he's still giving me one.