At sixty-two, I had finally reached the age where I no longer wanted excitement arriving at my front door.
I had already had enough of it.
My husband had died six years earlier. My daughter had moved to another part of Bellmere with her own family. I had spent more than three decades working in a public elementary school, first as a secretary and later managing the front office, which meant I had endured angry parents, sick children, missing permission slips, broken copy machines, emergency drills, budget cuts, and principals who believed every crisis could be solved by scheduling a meeting.
Retirement was supposed to be quieter.
And mostly, it was.
