Read Mr. Monk is a Mess for Free Online

cream and went for another scoop. “Is it that obvious?”
    “It’s only natural,” she said. “I’ve done it four times and it’s never any easier. But once the actual move is over and things settle down, I’m always grateful that I took the risk and made the change. You have one advantage, though, that I never had.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Me,” she said, taking a spoonful of ice cream herself. “Someone who has already been down the road you’re traveling. I’ve got your back. I’ll start by looking for your new place here while you’re settling your affairs in San Francisco.”
    “You make it sound like I’m going back for a funeral,” I said. “Come to think of it, I am. I’m burying my old life.”
    “Oh, stop being so melodramatic,” she said, carefully exposing and removing a big chunk of cookie, like an archaeologist finding a rare fossil. “You’re making a change, that’s all.”
    “I’m beginning to understand why Mr. Monk hates change so much.”
    “Don’t you love your new job?”
    “I do,” I said. “Even the mundane stuff is a thrill for me.”
    “Don’t you like Summit?”
    “I do,” I said. “I feel very comfortable here.”
    “So you should be excited about what’s ahead.”
    “I am,” I said. “But it’s not as simple as that.”
    “Of course it is,” she said.
    “For the last twenty-plus years, my life has been in San Francisco,” I said. “It’s where I married Mitch, bought a house, and raised Julie.”
    Sharona waved away my argument. “Your husband has been dead for over a decade. Stop using him as an excuse not to have a life.”
    “It’s more than that. How is Julie going to feel about me moving to Summit to become a cop?”
    “Doesn’t she know that you’re already working here?”
    “She knows that Mr. Monk and I are here helping Randy out,” I said. “But I haven’t told her that I’m actually working as a police officer.”
    “Or that you’ve already accepted Randy’s job offer.”
    “This is big stuff. I need to tell her face-to-face,” I said. “I don’t want her to be hurt.”
    “What does she have to be hurt about?”
    “That I made the decision without consulting her, for one thing.”
    “It’s your life,” Sharona said. “Not hers. You don’t have to consult anyone.”
    “I’m being selfish,” I said. “I’m abandoning her and our life together.”
    “I’ve got a news bulletin for you, honey. Julie is an adult. She’s got a life of her own now, apart from yours. And I’ll bet that she’s not calling you to consult on every decision that she makes.”
    “I wish she would,” I said.
    “You should follow her example. You aren’t responsible for raising a child anymore. You have your life back. You can do as you please without anyone or anything tying you down. There are a lot of people who’d envy the opportunity that you have now to reinvent yourself.”
    “But I’ll be leaving our house behind, the one thing Julie and I both have left that we shared with Mitch,” I said. “How can I do that?”
    “She did,” Sharona said.
    “She left to go to college, but it wasn’t like she went all the way to, oh, Summit, New Jersey. She went across the bay to Berkeley. She knew that she could always come home,” I said. “Where will home be now?”
    “The one she makes for herself. It’s just a house and San Francisco is just a city. It’s the memories that matter and they’re going with you.”
    “But the San Francisco Bay Area is where Mr. Monk has lived his entire life.”
    “And Adrian is coming here, too. That alone should tell you something.”
    “But what if he changes his mind and decides to stay in San Francisco?”
    “Ah, now we’re getting to the heart of it.” Sharona got up, went to the cupboard, took out a package of Oreo cookies, and set it on the table. “You’re afraid to leave him.”
    “He needs me, Sharona,” I said.
    “Sure he does.” She opened the package, took out