Jennifer Worrell
Utopia lay just beyond the lighthouse cast.
We set out in an aluminum canoe picked up at a garage sale, steered by mismatched oars. We jabbered on about how our new life would be: childish notions of island living, swinging around our tree house on vines, surrounded by flowers and perfume. I’d been to the island dozens of times, I knew its heartbeat as well as my own. We’d be safe there. We’d have the life we always dreamed of.
Like pennies into a fountain, we tossed overboard things we’d never miss. Goodbye, gray canvas walls and towering inbox; predictable schedules and alarm clocks and endless staff meetings; Friday after Friday of yellow sheet cake: goodbye! She had her back to me but I could hear her smiling with every coppery farewell.
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Our last two weeks at
