He burst in through the screen door with a full-grown mongoose in his arms.
“He found me! Rikki found me!” Her son was nearly weeping with happiness.
Anne stood up and kissed the top of Pete’s sandy blonde hair. It was pure gold now, brightened by the tropical sunshine.
Rikki perched two paws on Pete’s shoulder and sniffed curiously at Anne.
“How’d he know I was here?” Pete asked.
“He must have heard your voice.”
“I love him so much!” Pete snuggled the mongoose aggressively. “Hey, where’s our cat treats?”
“Under the sink, I think.”
“Thanks!”
Anne went back to the table, feeling a bit lighter.
Whatever she had to do to stay with her family and give her children the best possible childhood, it would be worth it.
Oakley joined her at the table, tapping away on her own laptop as she put in orders for the café.
“Maybe I should look for remote work,” Anne said after a while.
“Like what?” Oakley asked.
“I don’t know… marketing? Digital assistant? I know all the ins and outs of managing reservations, so maybe I could do something with that?”
“How do you even go about finding a remote job?”
“Oh, there’s a ton… and probably ten thousand people applying to each one.”
They were quiet again for a while, each of them focused on their own screen.
“I think I found something.” Oakley turned her laptop to face Anne.
Instead of the job listing she had expected, Anne found herself looking at a beautiful two-story house. It was vaguely familiar, and after a moment she recognized it from her childhood. The tall, stately building was on a quiet side street, and she used to pass it on the way to a friend’s house.
“What if we opened an inn?” Oakley asked.
Anne stared at her. “Do you mean it?”
“You have the experience, and I have the capital.”
“Really? Even after the coffee shop?”
“That wasn’t a huge investment. This…” She pursed her lips and looked at the screen. “This would be, but I think I could swing it. You have some savings too, right?”
“Well, yeah, but nothing close to what you got in the divorce.”
“That’s okay. I’ll fund it, you run it.”
“You’re serious.” A low buzz of excitement thrummed in her chest.
“Always. We’ll have to dig into the research and go over the numbers, but I really think we can do this.”
“I know we can.”