Dune Road by Jane Green

Emma into the car to take her to preschool, and climbs into the driver’s seat.
    “Shit! ” she says loudly, jumping out and feeling her wet bottom. “I don’t believe it! ” She notices that, once again, Amanda has left the window open all night, and the summer rainstorm has soaked her seat.
    “Mommy?” Emma’s little four-year-old voice says loudly from the back as she wriggles herself into her car seat. “What does ship mean? ”
    “You know, Ems,” Charlie forces her voice to sound normal, “ships are like big boats, they sail on the ocean.”
    “Why did you say ‘ship’? ”
    Charlie’s heart sinks as she realizes Emma is not going to let this one go easily, for her daughter is nothing if not persistent. She thinks this must be what they mean by second-child syndrome: Paige was always so easy, then along came Emma who, from day one, was stubborn, strong-willed and determined to have her way.
    “I just thought that we ought to go for a cruise one day and . . . and I should start looking for a ship.”
    There’s a pause.
    “What kind of a ship? ”
    Oh God. Charlie just doesn’t have the patience for this today. Goddamned Amanda. Goddamned nannies. Thank heavens Emma will be in kindergarten next year and hopefully she won’t need anyone by then.
    Not that she needs anyone now, some would argue. She didn’t work for years after Paige was born, but once Paige was in school she started her floral design company, initially just doing flowers for friends, and parties that friends held, but word quickly got out, and now she finds she has orders to fill almost every day.
    Keith’s career, his job on Wall Street, seems to be going from strength to strength, and it’s true, she doesn’t need to work, could do as most of her friends do—hit the gym after putting the kids on the bus, meet friends for lunch, fill the afternoon with charity meetings—but she likes being defined as something other than a mother, likes having a different role in life.
    She doesn’t have a store. For a while she thought about getting one, but the only place it would make sense, in terms of passing trade, would be on Main Street, and the rents are now so ridiculously high all the independent stores are being forced to close their doors, the ubiquitous chain stores the only ones that can continue to afford to be there.
    There are vacant spots by the marina, but the prices are too high there, and after a while she realized that even if, financially, it made sense to have a retail space, it would also mean taking the business a whole lot more seriously. It would mean accepting every order, no matter how much she didn’t want to do it; it would mean actively shopping for new clients; and worst of all, it would mean getting up at four in the morning every day to make it to the big wholesale flower markets in the city, to ensure she got the biggest and the best.
    Not that she doesn’t go to the markets now, but it’s leisurely, at her own pace and time, to fill orders as they come in.
    A couple of years ago she and Keith converted an old, falling-down barn in their yard into a workspace. It isn’t fancy. It has brushed concrete floors and countertops, industrial track lighting, but there is a large refrigerated room to keep the flowers cool and fresh, shelves and shelves of vases of assorted sizes and shapes, and her tools of the trade neatly assembled, rolls of brown paper, spools of raffia.
    A large cork notice board fills two walls—one has orders pinned all over it, various reminders, and the other is filled with pictures that inspire her: hand-tied bunches of peonies and lilacs, elegant gardens with clipped boxwood hedges, photographs cut from magazines of brides holding gorgeous bunches of hydrangeas.
    In one corner is a wrought-iron café table with four chairs. They had been driving through Easton one Sunday, taking Paige, when she was around eight, to feed the animals at Silverman’s Farm, when they passed a tag