Free It's a Wonderful Wife by Janet Chapman

aren’t what they used to be, and I wouldn’t be able to walk for a week if I went slogging through a clamflat.” They’d gone on another “adventure” that Saturday instead, and Cadi had once again explored the wonders of Maine from the backseat of their sensible sedan.
    But it hadn’t been until three of her friends had each lost a grandparent over the course of her second-grade year that she’d realized she could just as easily lose her parents. She’d also realized they couldn’t help being old. So she’d stopped asking to do stuff with her friends and started making sure she never upset her parents, afraid one or both of them might suddenly keel over dead at the dinner table, just like her best friend Susan’s grandma.
    Yes, that was when she’d started down the slippery slope of pleasing people, which had quickly grown to include friends, teachers, townspeople, college roommates, and even Stanley.
    Not coworkers, though, because she’d never held an actual job. Heck, the IRS probably hadn’t even known she existed up until fourteen months ago, since her parents had always given her unbridled access to their money, even going so far as to present her with a blue—to match her eyes—leather-clad checkbook on her thirteenth birthday; the enclosed card saying whatever was theirs would always and forever be hers.
    Who gave a thirteen-year-old a checkbook, especially one without a register? “You don’t worry about that, Cadi,” her father had said when she’d asked how big a check she could write. “Whatever amount you fill in will be covered.” He’d smiled and patted her hand. “Just try not to bankrupt us, okay?” And then he’d slipped a pad of Glace Architecture checks in where the register should have gone. “But I want you to use these checks whenever you’re purchasing materials to build your models, because supplies are a business expense.”
    Good Lord, two weeks after he’d died she’d had to go to the bank—to a branch clear over in Ellsworth, she’d been so embarrassed—and have someone show her how to reconcile the monthly statements. It was then she’d vowed that if she ever had children of her own, she would make damn sure they grew up knowing how the world worked.
    Her dad had even purchased her cars; the first one when she’d gotten her driver’s license and the second when she’d come home from college and had had to commute to Machias three days a week. Which was why she’d taken Stanley with her when she’d decided to buy a new one a couple of months ago, since she’d never even set foot in a dealership before. And being such a people-pleaser, she’d let him talk her into another boring, albeit luxurious, sedan. Which was also why, fourteen months after Owen Glace’s death, she was still engaged to a man who was in no hurry to get off his comfortable couch.
    Cadi knew the real reason Stanley wasn’t looking for a new partner was because of their agreement that when he found one, she was leaving. He didn’t even have to buy out her father’s half of the business, because Owen had signed it over to him—lock, stock, and building—the day they’d gotten engaged. The problem was that Stanley worried he wouldn’t
have
an actual business if she left, to which she’d argued that all he had to do was find the right partner.
    But for that to happen, he had to at least
look
.
    Cadi twisted the cap off her bottle of Moxie with a heavy sigh, took a sip of the bittersweet soda, then screwed the cap back on with another sigh. Unless she finally started pleasing herself, ten years from now someone was going to find her cold dead body slumped over one of her models, with
sheer boredom
cited on the certificate as the cause of death.
    And really, only two things were stopping her from going home this morning, packing a