Page 33 of Dropping the Ball

I stare at her, my jaw slightly dropped, but her eyes are still closed. I shake my head and smile, see myself out, and make sure the door is locked behind me.

Tuesday can’t come soon enough.

Chapter Thirteen

Kaitlyn

Here are things thatmake me sad: I do not have red hair.

That’s it, really.

It is the one ongoing tragedy in my life, because ever since I readAnne of Green Gableswhen I was ten, I’ve wanted to be Anne Shirley. We don’t have many things in common, and red hair is the least of it. I’m not an orphan. I don’t have writing chops. I’m not prone to naming the puddles and sidewalks around me things like the Lake of Shining Waters or Dryad’s Bubble. And I’ve been so well-behaved that I was the favorite of adults my entire life.

On the other hand, Anne and I are both clever girls. Neither of us is conventionally pretty. Maybe that’s why I wished to be like her so badly. Her intelligence and stubbornness made her beloved by all the best people. But her openness won her friends easily, and I’ve only learned to open up more recently. Still, I’ve found a few of those “bosom friends,” and Madison is the best of them.

I don’t think there’s a more famous quote in that whole series than Anne’s fervent declaration on Octobers. “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers,” she said.

And as I walk out of my house on this October first morning in an orange suit to welcome it, I decide Anne and I are the same in this way too. It’s not so much the weather; we’ll be in the low seventies again today, and it’s still green everywhere. But the air is crisp with possibility the way it used to feel to me before school started every fall.

I get into my car and rev the engine, my parents having driven it over after church yesterday.

When I hurried out of my office last Thursday, I was plain old Kaitlyn. Today I return to work as an auntie.

And as the boss, not the boss-in-waiting.

And as the woman who has been carried in the arms of Micah Croft.

The auntie thing is the most important, of course. So why have I thought about the carrying thing just as much?

Because maybe Iamas prone to romanticizing as Anne Shirley was.

I slide on my sunglasses and give my reflection a cool once over in the visor mirror. “You were tired. Mistakes were made. Not big mistakes. Now go be the boss.” I flip up the visor, pull out of my garage, and head toward the warehouse.

I moved my meeting with Micah from tomorrow to first thing this Monday morning so I could retake control of the situation. We’ll have a good working relationship now, but boundaries were crossed, and they need resetting. Boundaries like Madison having our architect visit her newborn in the hospital.

Boundaries like me having our architect carry me into my house to sleep.

Boundaries like how much I liked having Micah there for all of it.

Mainly the baby thing though.

Micah’s truck is already in the parking lot along with a white work van with “Herbert Metalworks” painted on the sides. The welders.

I walk in through the warehouse door and pause, taken aback by the change since I was last here. It’s full of stuff, so much, and so many kinds that I can’t process it at first. I spot Micah on the far side of the warehouse in a hard hat, consulting with a woman over some papers, and they both look up when the door closes behind me.

Micah holds up a hand in greeting, and I return the hello before winding my way over. The stacks and piles begin to make visual sense. Stacks of metal bars. Folded piles of black fabric, chest high. Five-gallon buckets of paint. Piles of scrap metal.

There issomuch here, and yet . . . it’s hard to imagine it turning into the marigold canopy Micah presented in his sketches, but I remember his dove installation and decide not to doubt him.

“Good morning,” he says when I reach them. “How’s the baby? I’m willing to be taken hostage by any baby photo content.”

“Funny, I happen to have some.” I pull out my phone and open the album that already has three dozen pictures from Harper’s first three days of life. “Don’t think I didn’t see you trying to figure out what to say when Madison asked if this baby is beautiful, but I’m here with the photo evidence that she is, and you better look at this like you’re witnessing beauty incarnate.”

The woman standing with him chuckles, and Micah introduces her. “This is Eva Herbert, a master welder and the best person in Texas for this job. Eva, this is Kaitlyn Armstrong, the boss.”

“Your baby is beautiful,” Eva says.

“My niece, and yes. Learn from her,” I tell Micah. “She didn’t even have to see the pictures.”

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