Oregon surprised me.
I wanted to hate it.
I wanted the streets to be ugly.
I wanted the neighborhoods to feel wrong.
I wanted the schools to be terrible.
I wanted to walk into Ben’s new hospital and immediately know that none of this could work.
Instead, I liked it.
I liked the quiet streets.
I liked the parks.
I liked the bakery near the hotel.
I liked the little bookstore near the hospital.
I liked how families walked together in the evenings.
And that scared me.
Because Oregon wasn’t the problem.
The way Ben had chosen it without me was.
That evening, we had dinner with some of the people Ben would work with.
Halfway through the meal, one of them smiled at me.
“Your wife must have been thrilled when you negotiated Fridays.”
I turned toward Ben.
“Fridays?”
His face changed.
Outside the restaurant, I stopped.
“What did you negotiate?”
“One Friday off every month.”
“For Olive?”
He nodded.
“She said I always work on fun days.”
I looked at him.
“You remembered.”
“Of course.”
“Then remember something else.”
He waited.
“Next time you hear something like that from our daughter, tell me.”
“I will.”
“Don’t build an entire life around something I didn’t even know you were trying to fix.”
