Page 63 of The Woman with the Target on her Back (Grassi Family)

Get back to his real life.

And I would never see him again.

I should have been okay with that.

Happy, even.

Since I didn’t want anything serious. I didn’tdoserious. I liked my life exactly how it was.

Or, at least, I did.

Now? Now I wasn’t so sure.

I don’t know if it was simply that I’d always kept myself so busy that I didn’t get a chance to slow down and realize my life felt incomplete or what, but that was suddenly how it felt.

Away from the shop, I got a chance to relax, to unwind, to actually get some sleep.

I watched TV and movies.

I had long, lingering meals with August and Aurelio sometimes.

I got to snuggle into August in bed then wake up in his arms the next morning.

On top of all of those experiences, there was the idea of other things.

Listening to August talk about his family had opened me up to my own desire for one. I couldn’t tell you if it had been hidden before, or if it just hadn’t existed. All I could say for sure was now it did.

I wanted big, loud Christmases.

I wanted people to call and check in on me.

I wanted someone to give a shit that my birthday was coming, or that I was under the weather.

I wanted to have people that I could bake cakes for and make soup for when they were under the weather.

I wanted a good man to fall asleep with at night.

And maybe a couple of babies to continue the tradition on with.

So once August was gone, some part of me felt like he was taking all of that with him.

I knew me. I knew exactly what would happen once he was gone. I would throw myself back into work and my causes. I would drive myself into the ground until I was so physically and mentally exhausted that I didn’t have time to think about what was missing.

That cycle would continue until the clock ran out on those things I now realized I wanted.

Then what?

I would be a lonely, bitter old lady in a nursing home with no one to come visit me, and no one to carry on my memory.

What a depressing thought.

The Grassis never forgot anyone.

Just the other morning, Aurelio had both August and I almost in tears with a story his father had told him about his great grandfather.

That was a nice thing to have.

A family.

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