Chapter 6 - A New Foundation
While the lawyers fought, I began to rebuild. I took the freelance design work I had been doing and turned it into a full-fledged agency. I reached out to former colleagues, and because I had always been the one behind the scenes making things work, they were eager to bring me back—on my terms.
I rented a small apartment with a view of the Puget Sound. It was nothing like the house in the suburbs. It was small, cozy, and filled with light.
One afternoon, six months into our new life, Lily came home from school with a drawing. It wasn't a butterfly this time. It was a picture of our apartment, with two figures inside.
"Who are they?" I asked.
"That's you, and that's me," she said. "And the dog is coming soon, right?"
May you like
I laughed, and for the first time in years, the laugh was genuine. "Yes," I said. "Yes, I think it is."
I felt the last of the "invisible" weight lifting. I wasn't just the organizing mind of a household; I was the architect of my own joy.
