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Izzy: I see. Okay. Well, it was nice to meet you Matthew. Hopefully I’ll see you here again soon.

Matt: Count on it. Good-night.

Izzy: Good-night.

Isabella closed her web browser and shut her laptop for the night. Good night indeed, she sauntered toward the restroom to prepare for bed, head still spinning with bewilderment and delight. Portland though? Seriously? He may as well live on the moon. There’s no way she was ever going to attempt another long-distance relationship, not after what happened last time.

Three years ago she met a gorgeous young doctor at a charity fundraiser her medical team was supporting. He was charming and debonaire, intelligent and sophisticated. They had sparks flying instantaneously.  Conversation was natural and fluid. He was absolutely perfect, until she discovered he was also sleeping with a sales rep in Seattle, an x-ray technician in Spokane, and a billing clerk in Vancouver. Apparently, he got around. It took her a full year to get over him, so there was nothing left in her to trust another man she was apart from more than they were together.

Though it was well past her usual bedtime, sleep would not come easily on this hot July evening. It was unusually warm for so early in the summer. None of her living arrangements in the Puget Sound area had ever had air conditioning, but her current apartment had particularly poor airflow. She knocked on her daughters’ bedroom door and cracked it open to check on her girls. They were both still awake reading.

“I’m heading to bed now. You girls doing okay?” her inquiry was met with simultaneous head bobs. She walked over and kissed them each on the top of their heads. “Okay, just don’t stay up too late. And keep the racket

down for crying out loud, I can hardly hear myself think over here.” They both smiled and shook their heads.

“Good-night Dearies,” she said, pulling the door closed behind her.

“Good-night Mom,” they echoed back at her.

It was hard for her to believe how grown up they had become. It seemed like only yesterday when she was reading them bedtime stories and insisting on lights out by 8pm, even during the summertime. Now they came and went as they pleased. It was almost more like having roommates than daughters.

They typically weren’t home at the same time in the evenings anymore. If they weren’t busy working, they were hanging out with friends or watching television down at the residential clubhouse.