Free Childless: A Novel by James Dobson, Kurt Bruner Page B

small closet door in the corner behind the counter, where Sarah retrieved a broom and dustpan while Matthew grabbed a small garbage bucket he had filled and emptied hundreds of times before.
    “How is she?” Sarah asked while maneuvering the broom into a corner.
    “Who?” he asked.
    “Your mom.”
    Matthew’s brow furrowed. Then he remembered that he had never told Sarah about the transition. He’d told her about getting accepted as a full-time student. He’d sought and received her smiling approval when he said he could finally pursue his dream. But he hadn’t mentioned his mother’s death. Why would he? The money that would have freed him to quit his job still hadn’t been released. Had that happened he might have told her about the inheritance. So, with the exception of a few shift-change requests to accommodate Tuesday and Friday classes, nothing was different about Matthew from what Sarah had observed over the prior four and a half years.
    “My mom is…” he began, then stopped. “Actually, she’s doing great. Never better.”
    He almost believed it after months of telling himself his mom was now free from the limitations of a decaying body.
    “Glad to hear it.” Sarah seemed eager to change subjects. “Remind me again why you’re moving to Denver.”
    She knelt and positioned the dustpan in front of a freshly swept mound of dirt while handing Matthew the broom.
    “Littleton, actually,” he said.
    “That’s right. Littleton then.”
    He hadn’t had time to invent an impressive reason for the change, so he told her the embarrassing truth. “I need to pay down my loan before I can fund another semester.”
    “I see,” she replied, emptying the dustpan into the bucket. Then she stood and waited for the rest of a story he hadn’t intended to tell.
    “I grew up in Littleton. Lived there until about ten years ago when my mom retired.”
    “What brought you to Boulder?”
    “Naïveté,” he said, laughing. “I assumed living close would improve my chance of getting into the university. Mom agreed. Of course, she never went to college herself, so knew even less than I did about what it takes.”
    Matthew took two steps forward to accompany Sarah, who had inched her way toward the front of the shop for one last inspection of the floor.
    “It took me seven years to get accepted, one of them driving to Front Range Community College to prove I have what it takes.”
    “Uh-huh,” she said robotically.
    He kept talking despite losing her attention. Closing duties completed, she appeared eager to lock up and head home.
    “Anyway, there are more jobs in the Denver area. Besides, I still have a few high school friends living in Littleton. I figure I’ll hang there to save for ten or eleven months and then come back to school next fall.”
    Matthew was glad she didn’t ask what job he had lined up. The only thing less impressive than cleaning coffee mugs was taking care of old people. But senior-care services paid a premium wage. Short of receiving the inheritance, he knew of no other way to get the kind of money necessary to enter his sophomore year.
    They returned the cleaning supplies to the closet before Sarah retrieved her purse from behind the counter.
    “Well,” she began, “I guess this is goodbye for a while.”
    “For a while,” he said with a tentative smile. “Thanks, again, for being a great shift boss. And for being a friend.”
    “You bet.” She extended her free arm for a side embrace, less than he wanted but all he could expect.
    “I’ll miss you,” Matthew heard himself say.
    “Ditto,” she said awkwardly. “So I’ll see you in about a year?”
    “For sure,” he agreed. “In a year.”
    Matthew stood outside in the warm August air watching Sarah enter the locking code on the front door. They walked silently in the same direction, the space between them widening as each veered onto diverging paths.
    He gradually slowed his pace until he found himself standing still