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the story to unwrap itself.
    “And I’m almost retired. I’ve got a new part-time position at the Midwestern nursing facility as a roving consultant. And these three months. Three free months stretching out in front of me, following the damn retirement party, to do what I want, to tackle my list, to live a few of these dreams.”
    “Come on,” O’Brien coaxes. “The best part. Bring it on, sweetheart.”
    Connie laughs and at the same time wonders if she would have done any of this without her co-pilot, her sometime navigator. She imagines her life as it has been—predictable, unchanged, rotating at the same speed and level and with the same flavors it has always held in its mouth for another year, three more after that, and maybe another 10 after that. Her stomach turns. She keeps smiling and sends a signal skyward to the goddess of friends, the delightful queen who sends women exactly the most perfect and fine best friend in the universe.
    “No one but you knows the whole story,” Connie answers slowly, savoring the words like fine wine before a feast, a cup of coffee on a long trip, a kiss from a long-lost lover. “I’m locking myself in here for a week or so and then taking off without any serious obligations until my next job starts in three months. And I’m going to do whatever in the hell I want to do whenever I want to do it.”
    “That was easy once you got into it,” O’Brien said, pleased. “Stop being so scared, sweetheart. The span of time you have in front of you will fly. You’ll have a glorious time and I’ll be jealous as hell.”
    “Once I get through the rest of this crap, the retirement, once I really lean into the list, I will focus on what I’m going to do the day after that and the next day.”
    “Which is not very many days away, is it?”
    And it wasn’t and the days suddenly moved like rockets.
             
    Connie finished her retirement speech and then decided to throw it away two days before her party at the best restaurant in town. She had started playing CDs in her bedroom really, really loud to replace the singing house, and so that she would stay focused on moving forward and not slouching backwards. It was a concert of noise and action she needed to hear.
    She thought about being spontaneous. The word was not on her list, which she had taken to reading not just at night but at least three times a day. When Connie placed her mind on the word “spontaneous” and on how she had lived for almost 30 years—schedules, kids, work, the necessary demands of life—it occurred to her that acting on the moment had been absent. There had been no room—she had made no room for dancing with a moment. She’d decided that the entire theme of the list could be centered on the word
spontaneity
and that’s what had prompted her to tear up her one copy of the speech—which she had reasoned was really part of #3 and getting rid of shit—and then immediately regretted it.
    But it was too late.
    Macy and Sabrina came to the party, left their husbands and babies at home, and informed her, as they were leaving for the restaurant, that they couldn’t spend the night because of their kids and husbands, and as they rambled into their confessions Connie simply held up both hands, said, “This is fine,” and showed them the dozen roses that had come with a simple card from their sister Jessica that said,
“Congratulations Mom,”
and she added, “At least you two showed up,” which made her two youngest daughters laugh.
    Sedated with cocktails, Connie managed to brave her party with the grace and style her co-workers had been accustomed to throughout every single year of her career. Her speech ended up to be an unsentimental remembrance of the old days and a challenge to always remember what the medical profession was all about. It lasted three minutes.
    Her gifts included a bright pair of funky white tennis shoes for her new job, a hilarious photograph of Connie sitting on an