“It doesn’t matter,” she says, her voice soft. “Don’t beat yourself up for not knowing all the answers. You don’t always have to know who you are. You don’t have to have the big picture, or know where you’re heading. Sometimes it’s enough just to know what you’re going to do next.”
For a while I let her words run through my head, like cool water on a headache.
“And what am I going to do next?” I say at last, with a hopeless shrug.
“You’re going to help me shell the beans for lunch.” She’s so matter-of-fact that I half smile in spite of myself.
Meekly, I follow Janet into the house, then collect a big bowl of broad beans and start splitting the pods as she shows me. Pods into a basket on the floor. New broad beans into the basin. Over and over and over.
I become a little calmer as I im
