R achelle returned to her hotel room that evening determined to honor Jillian’s request.
She slid out of her ankle-strap pewter pumps, pulled her cell phone from her evening bag, and perched on the end of the king-sized bed before flipping open the phone. She tapped the speed-dial code for her parents’ number and closed her eyes.
She wanted to check on the kids and tell them goodnight, but she wasn’t ready yet to inform them, or her mom and dad, that she was in San Diego with Jillian. Explaining everything that had occurred tonight would diminish some of its power.
Instead, she let Tate and Taryn do most of the talking.
“Did you feed Mel and Bob?” Tate wanted to make sure his fish weren’t being neglected.
Rachelle sighed. “Yes, son. I sprinkled quite a bit of food in the tank yesterday, so they should be fine.”
Gram had taken Taryn for her first manicure and the girl was beside herself. “We sat next to each other while we got our nails done. The lady who helped me said I could choose my polish color, and I wanted to put pink on one finger and purple on the next, but Gram wouldn’t let me alternate. So I settled for the pink.”
Rachelle inhaled to quash the resentment that threatened to surface. She recalled her mother taking her for a manicure at about the same age and insisting that she get a “normal” pink polish, not the sparkly green she had wanted. Mom still had to control everything.
“When you come home, I’ll do your nails in both colors,” Rachelle told her daughter. “In the meantime, have fun and be good.”
Rachelle ended the call with telephone kisses and took off the slate blue dress she had worn to Jillian’s party. She carefully folded it and tucked it into her suitcase before pulling out her red silk pajamas and a gold silk scarf to wrap her hair in for the night. Her layered locks fell well below her shoulders, and it was a challenge to manage each night, but she found that when she wrapped her hair before lying on it, she had fewer split ends and tangles.
She stood in the bathroom under the bright lights and brushed her hair around and around her scalp, until finally it was all in place and she could secure it with the scarf. She brushed her teeth and hummed “Wind Beneath My Wings,” the song that one of Jillian’s friends from church had sung tonight, before the party ended.
Those tasks completed, she debated whether to take her shower first or get started on her list. The eagerness to look at her life won.
Rachelle turned off the light in the bathroom and settled in the hotel room’s single sofa chair, next to a small round table positioned in front of windows that overlooked the city. From her twenty-first-floor position, the view was stunning. The pattern of night lights and intricate web of streets could have been a scene lifted from an artist’s canvas.
San Diego was breathtaking. No wonder Jillian and Patrick had settled here. This seemed like a fitting place to find the inspiration to pursue one’s dreams.
Rachelle stretched an arm to the middle of the table and grabbed the notepad and pen provided by the hotel. She wrote her title in big, loopy strokes: Ten Things to Do Before I Turn 50.
After witnessing Jillian’s results, she wasn’t going to play with death—she had children to raise. In a few months she would be thirty-six. That gave her fourteen years to accomplish whatever goals she outlined.
She sat there, however, and began to fidget. She was ready to brainstorm, but nothing surfaced. She numbered a sheet of paper from one to ten and waited.
Her thoughts turned to Tate and Taryn. In minutes, a dozen ideas of things she wanted to help her children accomplish flowed. Continuing their piano lessons and taking them to Florida to witness a space shuttle launch. Teaching them to appreciate all kinds of food and training them to do more chores.
Her thoughts even turned to Gabe, and what he would put on this list if he were here crafting it. He would be fifty in six years and by that time was hoping to spend at least one weekend a month on their boat. He wanted to be the head of the heart institute at St. Luke Episcopal Hospital and at a certain level with his private financial investments.
She had heard him share these plans with his golfing buddies and with his mother, before she died of a stroke. Rachelle had always been struck by the fact that while Gabe’s father had been dead for ten years, Gabe still seemed to make choices based on what his dad expected of him. She often chided him for that habit, but tonight, she realized that whatever measure he was using to make decisions, he was a few steps ahead of her.
Rachelle returned her focus to the present, and checked the numbers illuminated on the nearby digital clock. She had been sitting with her pen poised to write for nearly half an hour, but the page was still empty.
She knew what would be good for the kids. She could readily outline Gabe’s goals, even though he hadn’t articulated them to her directly. Yet, what did she want to achieve? What were her heart’s burning desires?
She had to put something on paper. Anything. The white space beside the first number on the page mocked her.
“I want to . . .” Rachelle spoke the words aloud, certain that if she persisted, the answers would come. “I want to . . .”
She sighed. Everything she could dream up, she was already doing.
She didn’t have to include travel on the list, because she vacationed often with Gabe and the kids or with her girlfriends. She didn’t need to set financial goals, because the ones Gabe had were good enough for them both.
She was already at the perfect weight for her five-foot-six frame, and Pilates three times a week kept her toned. Her almond skin was healthy and blemish free, and she could shop at just about any store that caught her fancy.
Surely, though, she was missing something. How had Jillian managed to compile a list of things that mattered to her soul? Rachelle wished she were still tight enough with her friend to call her and ask.
Since that wasn’t the case, she tried to imagine what Jillian would tell her, or would want to tell her, if they were having one of the candid girlfriend chats that used to be their norm. Jillian, she suspected, would suggest to her that when she had chosen to marry Gabe, she had chosen to put herself on the back burner, in favor of making sure his life reigned supreme.
Rachelle shook that thought from her mind and began writing.
1. Keep my optometry license current.
She sighed. This wasn’t a first-time something to do before turning fifty, but at least it was a goal.
She had renewed the license every year since Tate’s birth, thinking that someday she might decide to return to the profession she loved. Gabe had dismissed the idea as farfetched and unnecessary so many times that about five years ago, she began sending in her renewal fee to the state licensing board without telling him. She would not be able to officially practice again until she took a certain number of continuing education courses, but for now, just knowing her license was still in good standing helped her feel good about herself.
Rachelle stalled again. Only one thing on paper? This was ridiculous and frustrating.
She laid the pen and pad on the table and grabbed her pajamas on the way to the bathroom. She covered her head with a plastic cap, turned on the shower, and let the forceful stream of water warm up so she could step inside.
As she stood beneath its flow with her eyes closed and arms hugging her body, Rachelle’s heart sank. How had her life come to this? If she couldn’t set more than one personal goal for herself, she didn’t really have a life. Now was the time to decide what, if anything, she was going to do about it.