Chapter 5 pt.2 (Draft)

‘It makes things bigger, the world, the universe.’ she said, buzzed but serious about her insight. ‘I feel confined sometimes and when I am playing music, playing the bass, I break out and I am in the rest of the world for a while. Music comes back to me just when I absolutely need it. Just like you!.’

And then, out of the blue, through the haze of time I get a letter. Angie had died. She was dead and she had left me her stuff, her house in England because I had done what I think most people would and it turned to more. Timing is everything. I guess I could sell the house, or rent it, or (was I serious?) actually live there.

It still sounded crazy when I said it out loud. It made me feel odd like I was losing something. Something I couldn't put my finger on. Should I have felt that deep connection all that time like she must have? Time with Angie felt more like a dream than a memory.

Well, at least for now I wasn't moving. Not much at all after the knee surgery. I have found that, as I age, patterns become reassuring. It weakens them a little when I break their associated habits. In my entire life I think my pattern had never really had a chance to form. Now was a chance to 'settle,' to retired.

I was done craving my fabricated version of perfect married life. I was done trying to force it to happen. A new pattern was forming. Check the garden each morning. Food prep mid-day. Tennis on Friday and Sunday and even Monday if I was lucky. No guilt and grief but some emptiness. I was settling into the pattern I had not really noticed I was creating.

But, that was all about to change.

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