Page 72 of Butterfly Sisters
“I could definitely help you with a website,” Meredith said. “I just made one for my studio. It’s super easy to do.”
Leigh breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s so great, Meredith. I don’t even know what I was thinking, saying that I had a website.”
“Maybe it was your heart speaking,” Mama said. “Have you ever considered doing what you do on a contractual basis?”
Leigh put her hands to her face in bewilderment. “I can’t go out on my own,” she said. “It just doesn’t make sense. And I’ve got that interview in New York coming up.”
“Or it makes perfect sense,” Meredith said. “If I can do it, you can do it.”
Leigh went through her mental checklist, entertaining the idea. She had plenty of savings once Jimbo paid her back, and she could keep herself afloat while she built her client list. “I’d need money for advertisements, insurance, a retirement plan…” she said out loud, as the enormity of it all began to filter through her mind.
Meredith put her hand on Leigh’s arm, pulling her out of her contemplation. “It’s way less work than you think. I’ll help you.”
“We’ll both help,” Mama said.
“I don’t know…” Leigh shook her head, her heart pounding, the idea of going out on her own so sudden. Yet she couldn’t help but wonder if her pounding heart was excitement instead of trepidation. Maybe this was what she’d been preparing to do her whole life.
TWENTY-FOUR
Leigh swayed back and forth on the hammock, the morning after her call with Pamela, incapable of stopping the ideas that had started to filter into her mind again in the wee hours of the morning. The more she thought about it, the more she loved the idea of working for herself and starting up a corporate client management company. If she could work remotely for Pamela, she could do it for other businesses.Andshe’d need an office to handle it all. Maybe a nice little bungalow on the edge of the lake where she could get inspiration while creating her client lists… But did she have enough savings to make it happen?
Unable to manage anymore without talking to Colton, Leigh left him a message as she lay on the hammock, the sun sparkling off the lake. “It’s early, so I’m nearly sure you’re home,” she said into the phone. “I was serious when I said that I love you. And it’s killing me not to talk to you. I have this crazy idea and I want to run it by you. Please, Colton. Call me.”
She ended the call and stared up at the sky. As she lay there, she couldn’t get that little bungalow out of her mind. She turned her head toward the sunshine streaming in through the trees. A flicker of a shadow caught her eye. With a start, she sat up, staring at the bright-blue butterfly to her right. It hovered around the glass, flapping its gorgeous wings, the light shining through them, like some sort of angelic creature that had escaped from paradise.
Without warning, tears filled Leigh’s eyes and the hair on her arms stood up. “I see you,” she said in a whisper. It lingered a moment more and then took off. As she watched it fly away, she couldn’t help but wonder if the reason she couldn’t get the bungalow out of her head was because it wassupposedto be in her mind. She thought back to Meredith’s mention of how butterflies symbolize change.
Perhaps it was time to change her life.
She threw the covers off her legs and jumped out of the hammock, running up the hill to find Meredith.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Meredith said excitedly, as the two of them walked out of the real estate agent’s office.
“It will use literally all my savings, but it would be the perfect house where I could live and run my business. I had to at least make an offer.”
Meredith paced along beside her. “You want to leave New York and live at Old Hickory Lake?”
Leigh took in a breath of fresh, clean air, her mind completely made up. Like a movie reel, the memories of her youth flashed before her: the shake of Nan’s chest as she threw her hand to her heart, laughing, before she sunk her fists into a basket of fresh vegetables from the market; the way the trees swayed in a summer storm; the soft caress of the lake on Leigh’s skin while she bobbed around on a float all day… “I definitely do.”
Her sister’s gaze remained in front of them, but by the furrow in her brow, she was digesting this new information. Then a smile spread across Meredith’s face, and, with an excited wiggle of her shoulders, she asked, “Are you going to tell Colton?”
Just the mention of Colton’s name sent a wave of anticipation through Leigh’s chest. She wished she could run to him, throw her arms around him, and hear his delighted whispers in her ear. “I might wait to see if my offer is accepted. Then I’ll try to tell him. If he’lleverreturn my calls… I just pray that this fixes things between us.”
Meredith stopped right there on the sidewalk in front of the bakery in town, the smell of the warm biscuits wafting toward them. “You aren’t doing this just for him, are you?”
“Definitely not. For the first time in my life, I don’t know exactly what I want, but I do know that this feels very, very right. Righter than anything else I’ve done, which is something I couldn’t have ever imagined.”
“Well, let’s tell Mama, and then we need to get to work building your website!”
“Yes,” Leigh said, a sense of purpose she’d never felt before filling her. “I’ll also have a call with Pamela to tell her I’m interested.”
“This is going to be great,” Meredith said.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Leigh and Meredith sat together at the kitchen table, hunched over Leigh’s laptop, working on the new website, Nan’s butterfly journal sitting next to them. They’d spent the last few hours buying a domain and choosing the template through the host Meredith had set Leigh up on. They were formatting the contact page when Mama came in to join them.
“That looks gorgeous,” she said over their shoulders. “The pastel colors are so warm and inviting.” Mama leaned forward to get a better look. “What are you going to call it?” She squinted at the screen.
