Finding Home by Georgia Beers Read Free Book Online Page B

like she’d taken a backward slide since returning home to upstate New York. She wasn’t sure what to do with that.
    • 50 •
    FINDING HOME
    v
    Sarah’s return to work a few days later wasn’t so much work related as welcome back related. There were ß owers and cookies and balloons, and an overall feeling of celebration. She was genuinely touched by the thoughtfulness of her coworkers and they spent the majority of the day asking her questions, both business and personal, about the exotic country of New Zealand, what she’d learned, whom she’d met, what she’d eaten and drunk, and what it was all like. Having gone a little crazy with the digital camera she’d purchased speciÞ cally for the trip, she hesitantly showed them some of her pictures, all the while being painfully cognizant of the possibility of becoming a tourist stereotype, boring people to tears with endless photographs and stories. At least she wasn’t subjecting them to a slide show.
    Patti was excited to share her adventures with the staff and did so in the shy, somewhat uncertain way she did most things.
    Sarah’s previous secretary had retired a little over a year ago, an old battle-axe of a woman who took no prisoners and practically Þ nished Sarah’s sentences, and Sarah had hated to see her go.
    She was replaced by Patti just as Sarah’s relationship with Karen was reaching critical mass, her life spiraling out of control.
    Patti was the niece of the founder of the company, but despite the obvious nepotism, she had promise. She just needed some intense training in the ways of Corporate America and a little polishing in the department of Business Savvy. Sarah’d had no qualms about taking her on as an assistant because she could see the potential shimmering just below the surface. Unfortunately, she’d barely had the energy or the willpower to drag herself from home into her ofÞ ce. There was no way she was up for endless hours of training with her support staff. Karen’s departure had completely drained her, and poor Patti had been dropped into a position where her boss was preoccupied a good percentage of the time. To her credit, she’d managed to teach herself a lot of things
    • 51 •
    GEORGIA BEERS
    and she’d kept herself and Sarah aß oat while Sarah had worked on recovering. For the Þ rst time in a year, Sarah entertained the idea of actually thanking her admin for hanging in there when she was certain many others would have thrown in the towel.
    Back in the present, Patti was going on about some park she’d discovered on her own one Sunday when Sarah “didn’t answer her phone for some reason.” Only from months of practice was Sarah able to school her expression and keep from looking as guilty as she sometimes felt about evading the poor woman, but it wasn’t easy.
    Thank God for Caller ID , she remembered thinking more than once during the last three months. Whoever invented that was a friggin’ genius. Then she felt guilty again.
    It wasn’t until the day was coming to a close that she Þ nally had a chance to sit at her desk in her own empty ofÞ ce. She was suddenly bone tired with the annoying beginnings of a killer headache gnawing at the outer reaches of her awareness. As she spun in her chair and fumbled in the top drawer of her credenza for the trusty bottle of Motrin, her gaze landed on the framed 8x10 perched on the mahogany surface. Stopping the search for ibuprofen, she simply looked, her eyes running over every curve of Karen’s smiling face, the sun-kissed bronze color of her skin, the way the sun caught the red highlights in her hair.
    Next to her was Bentley, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, the expression on his face as close to happiness as a dog’s could get.
    Sarah remembered the day as clearly as if it had been yesterday and not three years earlier. They’d been on a walk through the park. Bentley was just a puppy, but that was the day they realized how smart and obedient he was.