Free Things I Want My Daughters to Know by Elizabeth Noble

just come back from the solicitor’s office—I’ve signed all the right pieces of paper, and the shop is not mine anymore. I sold it to someone really nice. I’m pleased about that. I even turned down a slightly higher offer from some woman I just didn’t think was going to be right for it. A husband and wife team—they have a new baby, and they’re going to move a bit more toward toys and little handknits and things, but essentially keep it the same. You can see that they are brimming over with ideas and schemes. Part of me wanted to talk to them about it—their excitement was contagious. But I didn’t. I signed the papers, handed over the keys, and came home. It makes me sad. I remember when I felt that way about it.
    Mark says we’ll get another shop, when I’m better. Put the money away while I achieve that, let it grow a bit in a high-interest account, and then get a better site, more square footage. I got extra 54 e l i z a b e t h
    n o b l e
    money, for the stock and the goodwill. . . . I was a bit surprised to see how much it was worth, when I remember what it cost me when I started it. . . . He says maybe we’ll put a little coffee bar in the back, with one of those shiny Barista machines, cater for the ladies who lunch. But I don’t know if I ever will.
    That shop was much more than a business to me. Which is not to say that it wasn’t a good business, she says proudly! Wasn’t I the original juggling single mother? That and pioneering meditation techniques in labor, which I’ll tell you about later. Did you girls know what a model for the modern woman your mother was?! I knew diddly-squat when I got started. Thank God for all the fun Mum and Dad never had. They left it to me. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was enough to get me started—the rent, stock, money to print flyers and advertise in the local paper and paint the front of the shop. I loved that color. Sea foam, it’s called. I remember being so proud and so excited and so bloody terrified, standing and watching the painter peel off the tape where he’d put the name of the shop.
    White letters, Castellar typeface, on a sea foam background. It looked so classy. The bank manager and the accountant scared the
    **** out of me, and I didn’t think I’d ever get the hang of that side of it. But I did. Studied my bookkeeping course and all the govern-ment small-business handouts at night, when you lot were sleeping.
    Sometimes I ironed at the same time. Who knew you could? I was exhausted, most of the time. Made some pretty big errors in the early days, too, though none of them, thank God, big enough to put me out of business . . . although it was touch-and-go for the first few years.
    I found a niche in the local market. More luck than judgment. It was never going to make us rich, but it made us independent, which was worth more than gold to me, after Donald and I split up. I’ve always tried to teach you girls that. Always be able to walk away and be on your own. Sounds defeatist, doesn’t it, when you say it T h i n g s I W a n t M y D a u g h t e r s t o K n o w 55
    like that. But it’s anything but, I think. There’s such a joy and such a satisfaction in it.
    But like I say, the shop was much more than that to me. It was my office, Amanda and Hannah’s playroom, Jennifer and Lisa’s homework space. Every corner of that shop had a memory of you four in it. I met Mark there. It saved my life.
    And I loved it. Every new delivery, every satisfied customer, every new friend made across the counter.
    And now I’ve sold it. Mark asked me if I’d ever hoped one of you would take it on. I’d never thought about it. I suppose it might have been nice. But it breaks my cardinal rule. Well, one of my cardinal rules. You four are not here to live out my dreams for me.
    I’ve had my dreams, and some of them have come true and some of them haven’t. But they’ve been my dreams. You have to have your own. Have them, cherish them, and never let go