Chapter 3

As Grace grabbed her paint supplies and stalked out of the house, she wished her hands weren’t so full that she couldn’t slam the front door as well.

Why don’t you try to get a real job instead of wasting time down at Trudy’s?

What are you going to do with your life?

Her dad’s words echoed in her mind, making her stomp down the path that would lead to the river. It wasn’t that her dad was wrong, but Grace simply didn’t have an answer to his questions. She’d gone to school to paint, she’d earned her degree, she’d tried to find some kind of job that would allow her to continue painting…but she’d quickly realized she’d have to move back home if she didn’t want to starve. She’d applied for other kinds of work—office jobs, retail, even a dog walker—but no bites. Grace had a degree with no work experience, and the economy being what it still was, no one wanted to take a chance on a twenty-three-old when they could hire a forty-three-year-old with two decades of experience instead while pa