Life After Forty Read Online Free

have an early night too.”
    “Good.”
    Dorothea paused behind me.
    “Remember, what you dream on the first night will come true.”
    She kissed the top of my head.
    “And you really need to get to the salon, sweetie. Graying roots may be okay out in the sticks, but not here. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. Have fun unpacking.”
    I stood up too and kissed Ines on the cheek. She looked at me with a slightly worried expression.
    “It’s fine, Ines. Really. And thank you.”
    “Till tomorrow then. Sleep well on your first night.”
    I closed the door behind them.
    And I was in my new apartment alone for the first time.

Alone
     
    I walked slowly through the rooms. I turned the light on in each one, left all the doors open, put a floor lamp on, placed a chair next to it, and smoothed down the bedding. Most of the furniture was new; every free minute of the last two weeks had been spent with either Dorothea or Ines in furniture warehouses and household shops, buying all the things I needed for my new life.
    Georg had offered to lend me money. He earned a lot, spent very little, and always had a fair amount left over. I was touched by his offer and accepted it. It enabled me to feel I could separate from the things that reminded me of my marriage. I looked around me. There were so many things in this apartment that I wasn’t used to yet. It felt strange. Unfamiliar.
    I took a deep breath and decided to unpack another three boxes, then shower and open the bottle of red wine that Dorothea had brought with her.
    Two hours later I was sitting in my bathrobe and with damp hair in my almost-finished dining room. No tablecloth. I thought of Dorothea and smiled. But I did have a candle, a glass full of red wine, and a new CD that Georg had given me today, Sunset Dance & Dreams , free from any memories of Bernd.
    The new lamp cast a warm glow as I looked around the room from the table. I liked the furniture and lamps that I’d bought. It was already shaping up to be a beautiful room; I felt almost content. I’d done it.
    Today was April 16. Day one after the move.
     
     
    In the recent days and weeks, I’d been conjuring up this date in my mind like a magic formula. April 16. I just had to keep going until then. After that things would get better. I’d managed all of my business appointments, but it was still demanding. I had stayed with Ines for the last two weeks.
    My move wasn’t planned until April 15; the moving company couldn’t do it sooner. The apartment was available, but it was still empty because the furniture couldn’t be delivered until then. Ines arranged the delivery dates for me. By day I cleaned the new apartment and called insurance, utility, and phone companies. I spent hours sitting in the residents’ registration office. My back aching, I struggled around DIY shops, crossing items off of Ines’s shopping lists. In the evenings I went with my sister—and her tape measure—to furniture shops and back to the same DIY shops to exchange the things on the list I had bought wrongly. I rarely seemed to know what the correct parts were.
    Dorothea had us over for dinner and, with the help of lots of wine and her enthusiasm for my apartment, managed to dissipate the dark clouds that were gathering in my mind. I had brunches with Georg, and he brought along the programs for Hamburg theatres and concert halls, marking all the events that he was free for. When I still looked sad, he tried to get tickets for the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.
    I listened to all the plans, wrote Georg’s free evenings in my calendar, let Ines explain the logistics of the DIY shops to me, laughed at Dorothea’s jokes, and thought constantly about April 16. I just had to keep going until then. Then this awful in-between period of homelessness and worry would be in the past.
    Today was April 16. I sat in my almost-finished apartment and waited for the feeling that everything would be better from now on.
    You’ll be waiting a long