Since her divorce, Judith Banks had been trying to make a change. Several, in fact.
First, she’d committed to living full time in her Apple Hill home. Gone were the days of tying off at Heirloom Island dock or Birch Harbor marina. Even if she did own her own boat, Judith preferred to have both her feet on dry land. Being so close to the chasm that was Lake Huron had started to make her feel as vulnerable as a dinghy, after all. Anyway, it wasn’t as if she had much choice. Her ex had gotten the houseboat and the divorce dissolved what extra funds either one of them had access to. In fact, she ought to be thankful to have the pretty two story there in Harbor Hills.
The second change Judith had made was a little less outward. More inward. In addition to reverting to her maiden name and the full-time residency on Apple Hill, she had given up.
Not on life, of course. She had given up on all those little things that add stress. The small stuff, as some might say. She’d stopped running a rag along the baseboards every Saturday morning. She opted for the automatic car wash on the corner of Third Avenue and Bunkle Street, rather than a biweekly handwash in her driveway.
And holidays. That was the biggie. Judith Carmichael was one to blow out the holidays, sending Christmas cards to everyone she’d ever met and coordinating the annual Easter egg hunt for the Michigan Foster Society. She made personalized valentines for the folks in Gene’s yacht club—a club he only barely belonged to. Fourth of July you could find her in red, white, and blue and stars and stripes, with her lawn chair propped in the best spot along Main Street, willing herself to stay awake through the nine o’clock fireworks show.
Judith Banks was done.
Done with it all. Now, now that she had her own life to live and her own self to live for, she could opt to let the toilet paper stash get a little low. She could eat cereal for dinner if she wanted. Fall asleep with the television on. Sheesh, she could do anything if she had a mind to!
And that’s exactly what she’d do, too.
The third change came on a gust of wind on a bright day in March. The air still nippy, warmth could be found in pockets of sunshine here or there.
“Jude!” a voice called out from somewhere in the vicinity.
Unused to chitchat with the neighbors, she glanced left and right, searching for the source of the error.
She spotted it one driveway over. Beverly Castle, the woman who lived in the house with the blue front door. Blue Beverly was how Judith had come to recall her name.
Judith smiled and waved and then started to correct Beverly. Judith, she could say. Or, Oh, it’s Judith. I’m Judith. I don’t go by nicknames. Maybe she could even add the “-ith” for Beverly. Ith! she could call back, and they could share a laugh and it’d be like Judith was a part of her neighborhood, after all. After all these years of running off with her husband on some excursion somewhere. Leaving, leaving, leaving. All the time. Now she was staying, staying, staying. It might be high time to send cookies around the block or something.
A lightbulb flickered in her mind. This could be her third change. Something to complete her rebirth as a single woman, over the hill but still living in the hills.
An alias.
Well, not quite an alias. More like a nickname.
Jude.
Jude, a divorcée who ate cereal for dinner, ignored the dust on her baseboards, and washed her car only when she felt like it. Oh, and now a full-time member of Apple Hill Lane.
No longer was she Judith Carmichael, wife of Gene Carmichael and town councilwoman of Birch Harbor.
No longer was she Judith Banks, reform school student.
No longer was she Little Judy Banks, the girl from Detroit City with an early history so tragic she buried it six feet under.