Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
Rory found herself smiling as she picked up her phone and immediately looked up images of birds to see what kind of sparrow would be flying around at night and why. She was a little shocked to find out that her visitor had most likely been going to a clandestine meeting with a male sparrow who was not her mate. She was having an affair—or she had most likely flown out of her nest with the intention of meeting a male. Rory played the recordings of the male calling to the female and the female answering.
“Naughty bird. Maybe that scare with the owl and getting hit by the cupboard door will scare you straight,” Rory whispered. “Who knew birds had affairs? Sheesh. What’s the world coming to? That’s why I know better than to go for the kind of men I find attractive.”
She detested going back inside and thought about putting a bed on the roof to sleep outside, but the weather really wasn’t conducive to that. Sometimes, when she first entered her apartment after being on the roof, air would be trapped in her lungs and she’d feel as if she couldn’t breathe. She knew what not being able to actually take a breath was, so it was silly, but she would have to push down a panic attack.
Rory never invested in a lot of furniture. Buying furniture wasn’t practical, because she couldn’t haul it around with her when she moved on. In any case, she liked as much space as possible in her apartment. She looked for open floor plans, and in the places she rented, the higher the ceiling, the better.
It didn’t take long to get ready and fall onto her bed. No covers. Sometimes, if she was restless, the covers would tangle around her legs and she’d wake up fighting, gasping for air, her heart beating too hard and too fast. She loathed the sensation.
She closed her eyes and pulled air into her lungs. Slow and steady. She was such a wreck. So many silly issues. She knew she wasn’t the only person in the world with health issues that had kept her from running marathons. She also wasn’t the only one having full-blown panic attacks that had more than once landed her in the emergency room, certain she was having a heart attack when she wasn’t.
Rory always assessed her situation at night, before she fell asleep. On a scale of one to ten, where was she? Happiness? She was a solid seven, creeping toward an eight. She liked where she’d landed this time, and she was making friends. Good friends. She liked several coworkers at the bar where she worked, and she liked her boss. She’d made friends with five women at the apartment building she really enjoyed, and that had never happened before.
She’d been in San Francisco five months already. Normally, she’d be thinking about moving on, but she might actually stay here awhile. She liked her job, and it was close to her apartment. Most days, even when it rained, she could walk to work. She had a parking spot allocated to her with her apartment, something coveted in the city, so most of the time she kept her car there and used public transportation if she couldn’t walk. Yes, this was one of the best places she’d landed. Satisfied that she was in a good space, she closed her eyes.
2
Rory avoided the elevator as often as possible, choosing stairs to help keep her lungs as healthy as possible. She had missed the afternoon workout with the circle of women friends she’d made since moving in. That was a sacred time to her, because she didn’t really have friendships, not the kind most people did. Making and keeping friends was difficult because she was a tumbleweed.
She liked the five ladies she’d met, and she had instantly clicked with them, which had never happened before anywhere she’d ever lived. She was cautious, but she had forced herself to be open to exploring the friendships. Four had already been friends before she moved in. The fifth moved in about the same time she did. The women were smart, funny and had good instincts.
Lydia Sawyer was a single mother to Ellen, a three-year-old girl. She was employed by a software company and was fortunate she could work mostly from home. Rory thought she was a fantastic mother and a dedicated worker. She could troubleshoot any software problems the company’s clients had from her home computer. That gave her the freedom to raise her daughter without the added burden of paying for childcare, an ideal situation because she was determined to make it on her own.
Janice DeWitt was the oldest among them. At just forty, she owned a janitorial business. Her husband had left her, cleaning out their accounts in order to keep his younger mistress happy. Janice started the janitorial service, and to her shock, it took off. She worked nights and oversaw three employees.