Postcards

Turns out, my sister was serious about everything she said in that phone call.

The cancer.

The leaving.

The postcards.

So I was already struggling to figure out just what God thought He was doing.

And then my boss introduced me to the guy who would be taking over the new project.

My project.

Sure, Owen’s hot. And so what if he has the world’s most impressive resume? He’s not getting my job without a fight.

And my job isn't the only thing I'm not going to surrender.

I'm also not going to let Owen take over my heart.

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

I frowned at the phone. “Heya, sis. How are you? Me? Great, thanks for asking.”

My sister grunted. “Fine. All of that. Blah blah. Still leaving tomorrow.”

“Oookay. Where are you headed?” I searched my brain for a memory of a conversation with my sister about an upcoming trip, and came up blank.

“I’m not sure yet.”

“But you’re leaving tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Sure you are. I haven’t fallen for an April Fool’s prank from you in years. In fact, I thought you’d given up on trying.”

When it came to spontaneity, my sister was not the poster child. She wasn’t even the runner up to the poster child. In fact, if you lined up the world’s population on a scale of spontaneous to obsessive planner, my sister—and me for that matter—would be rubbing shoulders with the people on medication for OCD.

“This isn’t a joke.”

“Fine. Okay. You’re leaving. You don’t have a destination. Do you have a return date?”

“I’m not coming back.”

I blinked. Everything in me seemed to freeze, like I was on a TV show and whoever was watching hit pause so they could run and get a snack.

Then it all rushed back with one of those whooooshes that you see in overly dramatic movies when the dead get sucked back into their bodies.

My sister was still talking. I probably missed something important. “Hold up. Rewind to the ‘not coming back’ part. What does that mean? You have a life. You can’t just walk away from your life.”

Her sigh crackled in the phone speaker. “This isn’t hard to understand. I’m taking a trip. I’ll be gone six months, or thereabouts. I’ll send you postcards.”