The weight of the keys in my palm felt like victory. After thirty-two years as a librarian at Oakridge Public Library, after decades of careful saving, after eight years of rebuilding my life post-divorce, these small brass house keys represented something I’d been told, repeatedly, I would never achieve. “You’ll never afford a beach house on a librarian’s salary,” Harold had said. Not cruelly, but with the patronizing certainty that had characterized our twenty-three years of marriage. “Be realistic.” Yet here I stood on the weathered porch of my very…
Read MoreI had just bought a beach house when my daughter-in-law texted, “Mom, clean the rooms, prepare the food, and make space for 22 people, our family and friends are on their way,” and I simply smiled and replied, “Of course,” but that evening I really did prepare everything… just not in a way any of them could have imagined.
