I would have asked her things too, but she’d squeezed in so many details that first day I’d walked in, that there weren’t too many other things I felt comfortable asking about so soon.
In the years since we’d last seen each other, she had gone to college in northern Colorado for nursing, moved to Arizona with her boyfriend, gotten married, and then he’d passed away too soon afterward. Since then, she’d moved back to help take care of her ill dad and run the family business, and—this was where she’d been vague and I’d bet it was because her niece had been there—shortly after that, Jackie had moved in. Her older brother got a job as a long-distance truck driver and needed somewhere safe and constant for her to stay.
Having worked for people that I cared about and loved before, I already understood how to listen and follow instructions without letting them get to me or affect my pride. But Clara was great. Literally great.
We’d made plans to hang out away from work sometime soon, but she had to get someone to stay with her dad because he couldn’t be left alone for long periods, and the nurses and aides who usually stayed with him during the day were already working too many hours with her being at the shop literally all the time since she didn’t have reliable help.
I remembered her dad and wanted to see him; she said that he would love to see me too. She’d told him all about how I was back, and that just made me want to help her that much more, even if I was pretty sure I was only one step above her previous shitty employees. My only saving grace was literally that, even though I was useless and constantly having to ask her questions eighty times a day, the customers were all sweet and patient. One or two were a little too friendly, but I was good—and unfortunately used to—ignoring certain comments.
When Clara wasn’t running around the shop talking to customers, we talked about the store. When she asked about my life, I told her bits and pieces, tiny fragments that didn’t exactly piece together properly and left plot holes the size of Alaska, but luckily the store was busy and she got distracted constantly. She hadn’t grilled me yet on what happened with Kaden, but I had a feeling that she had an idea since I was avoiding the topic.
That part of my new start in Pagosa was great. The Clara part of it. The hope I felt in my heart. The possibility of new connections.
But actually working at the store…
I’d come into my new job being realistic. I had no idea what the hell I was doing working at an outdoor outfitter. For the first ten years after I’d moved away from Colorado, the closest I got to doing outdoor activities were the times I’d gotten on my uncle’s boat. Over the last ten, I’d gone to a beach a few times, but we’d stayed at upscale resorts that served pretty and ridiculously expensive drinks.
My mom would have disowned me, now that I thought about it.
I had never felt more like an imposter than I did working at the shop though.
Today, someone had asked me about a wade trip, and I’d literally stared at them blankly for so long, trying to figure out what they were asking about, that they had told me not to worry about it.
Fishing. They’d been talking about a fishing trip, Clara had explained to me with a pat on the back.
An hour later, someone asked for recommendations on tent hammocks. There were different kinds of tent hammocks?
I’d had to run to ask Clara to help them even though she was busy with another customer.
What kind of fish are there around here? Little ones? I had no idea.
Which hikes could a sixty-five-year-old woman handle? Short ones maybe?
Was it too late in the season to go rafting? How should I know?
I had never felt so useless and dumb in my life. It was so bad that Clara had finally told me to work the register and run to the back if Jackie—a fifteen-year-old who was clearly more capable than me at everything—asked me to get anything from the storeroom.
And that was what I was doing, standing at the register, ready to check someone—anyone—out as Jackie handled some fishing rod rentals and Clara helped a family with some camping gear purchases—I’d been eavesdropping a ton and considering bringing a notebook with me to work to take notes I could go over at home—when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I took it out.
The notification wasn’t for a phone call or a text but for an email.
Then my hackles rose.
Because it wasn’t just some spam email or a newsletter from a company.
The name of the sender was K.D. Jones.
The man who had called me his wife in private and around loved ones.