A Window Opens

Louise sighed as she parked her silver Kia Sephia in her garage. She sat there for five minutes and then picked up her briefcase and her purse before getting out of the car. What, she thought as she approached the front door, do I tell Lena. I can’t talk at career day, if I don’t have a job. Before she could get her key in the lock, the door opened and Nora Flat, her housekeeper-nanny, greeted her with a frown.

“What’s the matter, Nora,” she asks as the woman unlocked the security screen.

“My brother called from Phoenix today,” Nora stepped aside as Louise entered the house. “My mother fell and broke her hip. He wants me...”

“He wants you to stay with her when she gets out of the hospital.”

“Yes!”

That’s a relief, she sit her briefcase on the floor and took her check book out of her purse, maybe I’ll have another job before Nora gets back and I won’t have to lay her off.

“Why don’t you take your vacation now,” she wrote a check and handed it to Nora. “I have some... unexpected time off, so I can handle things around here for four weeks.”

“Thank you.” Nora grabbed her sweater and purse off the hall tree and left.

Louise locked the security screen and closed the door. Then she went upstairs to her daughter’s room. Opening the door she peeked in, Lena lay on her bed fast asleep, with a Kindle lying by her side.

“Good”, Louise said going back to the stairs, “I don’t have to tell her until morning.”

Going into the kitchen, she made a fresh carafe of coffee. Then she went to the refrigerator, opened the freezer, and took out a pint of Death by Chocolate ice cream. Removing a spoon from the silverware drawer, she sat down at the table and began eating.

“What am I going to do?” She addressed the pint of ice cream. “I can’t go to career day without a career or at least a job.”

“Louise,” her grandmother’s voice echoed through the room. “Remember when God closes a door, He opens a window.”

“Granny,” she looked around room, “even dead you’re still mixing your metaphors.” At that moment, her cell phone ring.

She took the phone out of her jacket pocket, looked at the phone number, and pressed answer, “Nora, did you forget something?”

“How many boxes are in the living room?”

“Thank you.”

Getting up from the table, she poured a cup of coffee and went into the living room. She placed the cup on a side stand next to the couch and opened the first of six large boxes blocking the door to the entrance hall. A white business sized envelop, with her name on the front, lay on top of several books. Inside was a letter.

Dear Louise,

In accordance with our divorce agreement, I am sending you the children’s books we wrote and self-published. You may sell them, give them away, burn them, or put them in storage; I do not care. I do not want see them again.

Please, give Lena my love. Tell her Daddy will be sending her a birthday gift soon.

Your ex-love and husband,
Syros Huston

She picked up the first book and smiled. On the cover, was a picture of a calico cat with white angel-like wings and the title “The Adventures of Cali the Flying Cat” by Louise Huston and illustrated by Syros Huston.

“Well,” she said sitting down on the couch and picking up her coffee. “I guess Granny was right God does open up a window when He closes a door. I just hope Lena isn’t upset when I talk about the trials and tribulations of being a self-published author instead of a successful office manager.”

***

The next day, after putting Lena on the bus Louise put forty books, enough for each student in Lena’s class, in the car and drove to Morris Elementary. At the school, with the help of the Principle Jones, she put the books onto lunch cart and rolled it into Lena’s class. Principle Jones leaned down and whispered something into the teacher ear.

“Our next parent,” said Ms. Hatfield “is Mrs. Louise Huston, Lena’s mother, who is a successful self-publish author. Mrs. Huston has brought a book for each of you. Lena, would you like to help me pass them out.”

“Yes,” Lena’s face glowed as she laid a book on each classmate’s desk.