Probably I’d be lucky if even half of the people on my short list showed up tonight. The lure of more food and drink at someone else’s expense might suffice, if some of them were on tight travel budgets. They might rather save their per diem and pocket it, rather than spend it on a restaurant if they could get enough to fill them up at the two parties tonight. I remembered times when I attended conferences outside of Houston when I’d had to stretch my travel allowance as much as I could in order to avoid dipping into my own pockets. Particularly in the days when I had two young children who seemed to outgrow their clothes and shoes every couple of months.
My phone rang, and I saw that Helen Louise was the caller. She must be taking her midafternoon break, I reckoned. The time was a few minutes past three thirty.
“Hello, love, how are you?” I asked.
“I’m doing fine, love.” Helen Louise sounded tired, but she rarely ever would say that, at least during the workday. “We’ve had a really good day today so far. I must say, all your librarian colleagues seem to have made the bistro their favorite place to eat. Business has boomed since the conference started.”
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “The food of course is fabulous, and your prices are reasonable. They can afford to eat good meals and not worry about running their expenses up.”
Helen Louise chuckled. “All I have to say is bless them. Hungry librarians are a good thing.” She paused for a moment. When she continued, her tone was more serious. “What time do you think you might be through with the conference today? Or tomorrow? I know you said it runs through noon tomorrow.”
“Yes, it does,” I said. “I’ve got to be at a reception the library is having for attendees at the hotel from seven thirty to probably around nine or nine thirty. What’s up?”
“I want to talk to you about something,” she said. “I’m just wondering when will be the best time for us to sit down and talk when neither of us is distracted.”
“When is best for you?” I asked. “I’ll make my schedule work around yours as much as possible.”
“Thank you for that, sweetheart,” Helen Louise said. “I don’t want to impinge on what you need to do for the conference, though. I don’t think I’ll feel up to it tonight after we close, and I don’t imagine you’ll feel like talking then, either. So how about tomorrow afternoon sometime? Before Sunday evening dinner?”
“That should be fine,” I said. My curiosity about what she wanted to discuss was growing every second. Several possibilities danced around in my mind, but the one that made me terrified was the thought of illness. I knew she’d been to see her doctor the previous week for a routine checkup, and so far she hadn’t shared the results of that with me. I prayed I wasn’t going to hear devastating news about her health. “Can you give me any idea about what this is you want to discuss?”
She probably heard the note of fear in my voice. “Don’t worry, sweetie, I promise you it’s nothing terrible or scary.” She hesitated a moment. “I guess I might as well tell you now, so you can be thinking about it when you have time. I’m considering turning over the running of the bistro to Debbie and Henry and stepping back, taking more time off.”
TWENTY-FIVE
I was too surprised by Helen Louise’s announcement to respond right away.
“Charlie, are you still there?” Helen Louise asked.
“Yes, sorry,” I said. “What brought this about?” At the back of my mind I was still worried that she was ill and wasn’t telling me.
“I know what you’re thinking, and I promise you I’m not sick,” Helen Louise said. “But I have to face the fact that I’m not thirty-five anymore, and I need to slow down a bit. Otherwise I will wear myself completely out before I’m sixty. And that’s not nearly as far away as it ought to be.” She paused for a breath. “As much as I love what I do, I need more time off than what I have now.”
“I can understand that,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about that myself.”
“I know, love,” she said. “You’ve got this big decision to make, and I don’t want to add to the stress. But I also thought I should tell you this now instead of waiting until later.”
“I’m glad you told me now,” I said. “This definitely affects my decision about the job at the library. If you’re not going to be working as much, I want to have the time to be able to spend with you. Not to mention time with the grandchildren who are on the way.”
“Yes, they’re on my mind, too,” Helen Louise said. “I decided I didn’t want to be working all the time while they’re babies. There are too many moments in their lives I would miss.”
Helen Louise had never married and had no children. I knew she loved Sean and Laura and would love their children as well. Sean and Laura loved her, too, and had already accepted her as their stepmother, even though we weren’t married.
“We have a lot to talk about on Sunday,” I said.
“Yes, we do,” she replied. “Let’s leave it at that for now. We both need time to think about all this.”
“All right,” I said.
We talked for a few moments longer, then said good-bye. I put my phone down and turned to Diesel. He was staring at me intently, and I knew he understood that my emotions were running high right now.
“Everything is okay, sweet boy,” I told him. “Nothing for you to worry about.”
He meowed, and I got up from my chair and went back to the sofa to sit with him. He crawled into my lap and rubbed his head against my chin for a moment.
“How would you like it if Helen Louise came to live with us?”
Diesel warbled loudly in response. Whether he actually understood the question, I had no idea. But even if he didn’t, I think he understood the emotion behind it. I felt almost dizzy over the sudden change that was looming in my life, and I leaned back, Diesel cuddled to my chest. We sat that way for a while.
The news that Helen Louise planned to cut back on the time she spent at the bistro made my decision about taking the full-time job at the library much easier. If I had to choose between more time with family and a full-time job, I would choose family. If I needed the income from the job, I would have to consider this all more carefully. But fortunately for me, I didn’t have to worry about that.
I did want to continue to work part-time at the archive, and I knew Helen Louise would still be spending part of every day at the bistro. We would have to plan out our schedules so that we worked similar hours and had our time off together whenever possible. There would be adjustments, but they would be worth it in the long run.
This significant change meant that the time was approaching when we could finally discuss marriage. For Helen Louise and me, marriage had been a little more complicated than it might have seemed at first. Helen Louise owned a house that had been in her family for several generations, and she loved it. She had grown up there and had returned to it after her parents died. I loved my house, too, even though it wasn’t my childhood home. Aunt Dottie had left it to me, knowing how I felt about it, and I couldn’t let the house go out of the family. I would see that as a violation of her trust in me.
So, where would we live? In this house? In Helen Louise’s? That was a big decision, but thankfully one that could be put off for a while yet.
I took a deep breath. So much going on, suddenly, in my life and in my family’s lives, all of it positive for the most part, but still it was a period of uncertainty. That I didn’t care for much, frankly, but I would have to keep reminding myself that it would all get sorted out.