Chapter 7: FinallyI blended ingredients with a spatula, then poured and smoothed the batter. “Did you ever actually live with Roy?”
“Finally. I was fifty-nine. Fifty-nine! He’d decided to take retirement at sixty-two. He was Principal by then and his fondness for kids had waned. After I threw a fit, he said that I could come to the Farewell Party but, considering his discomfort level, I stayed in the background like the other well-wishers. Together we paid cash for a cottage on a reservoir two hours from where we’d lived, which he liked; he still worried about prying eyes, still looked over his shoulder until he’d get a crick in his neck, but less. It weren’t nothing spectacular, cinderblock, on a cement slab. I took my cats, indoor and outdoor—Holly, Keller, Lukie, Stella, Sophie, Hayley
