This spring felt different for Charlotte.

It did feel truly like spring. Flowers blooming, fresh green grass growing, with blue cloudless sky and the whole spring fragrance that seemed to waft through the air. There was a certain lightness in the air, the kind of lazy Sunday lightness that made her feel better for reasons she could not specify. It was like she could finally exhale, like life did not pressure her and throw all kinds of shit at her anymore.

She actually took out her best summer dresses and started wearing them more. She looked at herself in the mirror and she did look thinner. Her skin was pale, and her collarbones had protruded a bit more. Her breasts seemed to have lost some tautness due to her weightloss, her bra felt like there was more room in it.

But she was quite proud of herself nevertheless.

The past two seasons, autumn and winter, had been a torture for her.

Mom died in early autumn. The cancer that she had fought the past two years had claimed her life, though she did smile at her last moment in the hospice care. That gave a slight consolation to Charlotte. Mom had fought hard, and she had given all the strength she could muster. Two years.

She was in a dazed state of grief when she got back to work. To her lab. To her dissertation research. Making sure she could earn her Ph.D on time, just as she had promised Mom. She worked in an almost mechanical state. Forty-plus hours per week. Writing, doing data analyses, writing, meeting, presenting, writing ...

That was all, and she thought that was great because her laser focus on work took her mind off from Mom, and her heart forgot for a while that she was grieving.

She did earn her PhD. She was now Dr. Charlotte Annette Lee, Ph.D. A developmental psychologist. Last week she cleaned up her workspace and received her diploma.

Now she was just exhausted. She did not want to look at her Ph.D stuff for now, she did not want to think about the big move she would have to do come autumn. She had been accepted as a research scholar at a prestigious university in California.

But she could not even begin to think about it now.

She had been busy with something else. A job, well, kind of a job, these days. A job that had got nothing to do with research. A job that formed another part of her.

One part was Dr. Charlotte Lee.

The other part was MissCharLee, a for-hire clown for kids birthday party.

She had one yesterday for a birthday party of a five-year-old boy at a park. She wore full clown costume and make up and oversized pointy shoes, sang, danced, and played a few magic tricks.

She had a blast. She had stopped doing the party clown since Mom passed away. Yesterday was her first time doing it again. It felt good to laugh, though she knew some of her friends and colleagues who happened to know about this side job of hers had always wondered: Why? Isn't there a more convenient, comfortable, parttime thing to do for a girl with a Ph.D? How can you withstand all the screaming kids and spilling juices and falling apart cakes and anxious moms and dads?

The truth was Charlotte did not mind it at all. It all started three years ago when after watching young children who came to be research participants were getting fussy and bored, she decided to come to work bringing the red clown nose.

It worked wonders. As someone who did research in child developmental psychology that meant she dealt with children everyday. The clown idea worked well for her. So, she just kind of kept going and expanding. MissCharLee was born.

Charlotte took a deep breath. Her one-bedroom apartment looked clean enough now. She had been standing next to her kitchen window, letting her mind wander while her hands, covered in latex gloves, had been busy washing the window panes with some soapy water.

Kitchen was clean, her living room dusted and vacuumed, her bedroom too. She was ready for her big trip tomorrow.

To visit Dad.

Three weeks. Spring vacation. It would be fun.

The last time she saw Dad was sometime in winter. Dad had stayed here at her apartment for a couple weeks. He had helped her with some admin stuff, then he helped her with sorting out and cleaning up Mom's belongings, making her cry a few times when he took a piece of handkerchief, a cup, a plate, a photo, or any random knick-knacks and told her the story behind it, a story as Mom would have wanted her to hear.

She had always secretly wished that her parents had stayed together.

The quiet, introvert, pensive Dad and the lighthearted, spontaneous, and loud Mom. They were so, so perfect for each other!

We have our differences, sweetheart.

Mom did not find the life she wanted with me. She found me boring.

Dad found life with me too asphyxiating. I was too busy, too loud for him.

We love you just the same, for always.

You will live with Mom. Dad will visit you often. Promise.

She remembered all the words said to her by her parents during and after their divorce process. She was maybe about 15 years old or so.

Mom and Dad did keep an amicable relationship though. Not once they talked bad about each other in front of her.

They kept going with their career, and she tried her best to be fair to both of them—she would tell Mom about her crushes, and soon after on the phone or videocall, she would tell the exact same story to Dad.

Dad got a position as a lead archaeologist in a prestigious museum in the east coast and moved there a year after the divorce was finalized.

Mom continued her work as a music teacher in a neighbourhood highschool. She lived with Mom and spent part of her vacation with Mom and part with Dad.

It was a good arrangement, not perfect, but it was doable and she had a somewhat calm teenagehood.

Charlotte smiled to herself as she brought her mind back from wandering. It would be a fun trip, she knew it. Dad was now in Europe, working on an excavation project of some Bronze Age structure in a small town located in the valley of beautiful hills and not far from there, the hills formed jagged rocks boundary with the vast ocean. She saw some photos Dad had sent her. Stunning place that seemed to always be grey and rainy even in spring. That was all she knew. He had invited her to come along and spend a few weeks with him there.

He had a girlfriend for a few months now at least. He had not told Charlotte directly, but Charlotte knew instinctively from the sweet, with an almost teenage-like sheepish way he referred to Ellie as my good friend. And that was fine with Charlotte. Dad needed someone to stay with him, to love and be loved by him. She was indeed looking forward to meeting Ellie.

Charlotte took a deep breath and decided to start packing. She started by stuffing her most beloved stuff in her crossbody slingbag: Her wallet, plane ticket, passport, phone, lipbalm, a bag of honey roasted peanuts of a specific brand that Dad also liked but could not find it where he was located now, a few chocolate energy bars, and her bright red round clown nose that was a present for her from Mom when she decided to be a clown for hire for kids birthday party. She knew it was so random, a clown nose in her bag but she had left the nose in her bag for months now, since Mom's passing. She grabbed a few more stuff and dropped them into her slingbag, then spent some time packing her suitcase.

Late that night, she stood leaning on the kitchen counter, eating instant spicy ramen noodles using chopsticks straight from the sauce pan in which she had cooked it in, and staring at her suitcase and slingbag, all set on the living room floor. She had arranged for some friends to help her take care her apartment and her potted plants while she was gone. All good.

She brought the sauce pan to her mouth and gulped the last drop of the noodle soup and nodded. An adventure it would be and she was ready.