Page 55 of The Woman at the Funeral

It was her blog.

She could project herself however she wanted.

“Thanks for this. I’ve been feeling really stuck about my blog lately. But I need to keep creating content.”

“You’ve had a lot going on.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I’ve been doing a lot of catch-up.”

“In town?”

“A lot of the consulting is done through emails or video calls. I’ve mostly been in my office going back and forth with clients and doing a lot of art research in their areas. I have one client who keeps me on retainer.”

“For art curation?”

“He’s, ha, he’s absurdly wealthy. Whatever you’re thinking, quadruple it. He is constantly buying up real estate around the world. Some are private homes; some are hotels. He wants art in all of them. He’s the client I’m most likely to have to travel for. You can only do so much research online for what artwork is available in a small town in Greece.”

“Do you like the travel?”

“Sometimes. I liked it more when I was younger. These days, I really like just being home.”

“Doing what?”

“Oh, a little bit of everything. Reading. Cooking or baking. Organizing. Trying to get into calligraphy because it lets me feel artistic even though I don’t have an artistic bone in my body. Watching documentaries. Wow, I sound like I’m eighty.”

“I don’t go out much either,” I told her. Clubs and bars were left in my twenties.

“What do you do then?”

“I work. I see my family. I’m growing herbs on my balcony,” I admitted.

“Really? How’s that going?”

“My basil needs its own zip code. But my oregano is barely hanging on to life. I got into it because I kept getting herbs from the store that wilted before I could even use them.”

“So, no video games or sports?”

“I mean, I’ll watch a game here or there. And one of my nephews is demanding I get a gaming console so I could play some lamb game that he’s obsessed with.”

“So when is the console arriving?”

“How’d you know I already ordered it?”

“You don’t strike me as someone who could turn down a kid’s simple request.”

“You’ve got me there.”

“So you really do want them? Kids,” she clarified. Like she didn’t believe me the last time she’d asked. But after all the shit she’d gone through with Matt, I figured it was natural for her to be dubious.

“Absolutely. I’ve wanted kids as long as I can remember. I know a lot of people who were parentified as children ended up not wanting that for their future. But it was a role I’d enjoyed and wanted again now that my siblings were all grown and didn’t need me.” My mind flashed back to Zen. Okay, didn’t need memuch.

“A large family?” she asked, watching me.

“I guess that will be up to my future wife, not me,” I admitted. “But I would love that. Though, with that many, I’d have to invest in a brownstone. How many do you want?” She flinched at that. “I’m sorry. Was that inappropriate?”

“No. It’s just… I’d gotten so used to thinking that I couldn’t have kids. It’s almost jarring to hear that I still could. Maybe.”

“Why only maybe?”

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