This is an alternate ending for the book 10 Impossible Things. It imagines that Trina chooses neither potential man, but is still interested in love, and how her life changes from that.

You should read the first section of the Burgundy Envelope ending where she selects neither man and instead goes out on her own. But in five years, instead of joining her family, she branches off in a different direction. Enjoy!

Five years later…

“…And I’d like to close with a thank you. I’m so honored to be invited to speak with you tonight.”

I clasp my hands and nod deeply at the organizers of the writing conference, the long sleeves of my intricately embroidered kaftan flowing gently in the hotel’s main room.

“There’s magic everywhere, and if you open your eyes and your heart, you can invite it in. And when you write your story, you pass it on to others, and change their worlds. Go forth and find your magic.”

The audience claps politely and rises.

I’m sweating like crazy. I gulp ice water on the podium. This is not unusual. After a speech, the panic, fear, and wonder wears off, and I realize I haven’t eaten or drunk in hours. I should be better at public speaking. But somehow, I’m always so focused on giving my best that I forget to take care of myself.

“Well, now.” Poppy, who’s one of the organizers of tonight’s writing conference, gives my elbow a friendly little shake. “That was lovely. I saw genuine tears when you talked about removing a certain someone from your auntie’s memoir. And you were worried they’d get up and leave when your name was announced.”

“Thanks, yeah. I’m sorry your featured speaker had to cancel at the last minute. It’s lucky I happened to be house-sitting close by.”

She snorts. “I hardly think Wales is ‘close by,’ but you are, as always, my lifesaver. And with six published memoirs in five years, I didn’t think anyone would go away dissatisfied.”

Yep. I have been busy.

Aunt Jo’s memoir didn’t exactly light the world on fire, but the nicest reviews came in when I was going through a really bad bout of seasickness, and those friendly words were exactly what I needed to read. I spent the rest of the cruise trying to begin my next book. And even though I attempted romances and thrillers and even children’s fiction, because that’s where the money is supposed to be, I kept veering back to memoir. So, eventually, I embraced it and mined my own life, turning over the bits of my past, shaking them like a box of treasures and displaying the different gems.

My second book was about living with my aunt. It’s called A Year of Golden Stars, and it’s a notable book of Rhode Island because I wrote it while I was on a state arts grant there, living in a cottage by the sea.

Then I wrote about my experiences with climbing mountains, including the four mountains I’ve summited since Fuji, and the two I’ve had to call off because of bad weather. It’s called Tickling the Toes of Gods.

My fourth book was about the month I spent in New Zealand cleaning wool on an alpaca farm. It’s called Kia Ora: Wrapping Myself in Kindness.

I also ghost-wrote two memoirs. Poppy counts those, but they’re not really mine.

Aside from the year-with-my-aunt book where I got a grant, I always have to crowdfund so I can pay for cover design and editing. After I publish them, they barely make anything. But I still keep on trying.

I keep on trying because I’d write it anyway, even if I never published another word.

I have to write to make sense of myself.

These past five years have been kind of insane. I’ve traveled the world several times over. I’ve gotten invited to dinners cooked by celebrities, met people you only see on TV screens. I’ve flown on private jets, snuck into exclusive nightclubs, and I’ve catered or done tarot readings or dog-walked for clients who travel with a staff. Almost none of it was for money, and honestly, that’s been fine. I’ve never gone houseless or hungry. I’m trying very hard to cultivate having “one of those faces.” The richer I become in experiences, the more spellbinding stories I can bring to a charcuterie board and wine bar, the more it feels like it’s finally paying off.

And, after a lifetime of squishing myself into the mold of the perfect employee or girlfriend or travel companion, I’ve busted free. I’ve been utterly uncompromising, centering my plans around nobody’s desires but my own. This is the life Nic tried to tell me about, and now, I’m living it.

I am free.

But lately, I’ve started to think maybe I should compromise. Just a little.

And I do have my frustrations.

I feel like I never get anything on my own merits. It’s always a referral, a friend of a friend, like Poppy’s invitation tonight, or the house-sitting I’m doing for Michelle’s cousins in Wales. My brother tells me that’s literally networking, and it’s a perfectly respectable way of staying employed, but I don’t know. If I were a bigger name…if I wrote something more important, more worthy, more lucrative…if I were more successful, then I’d get invited and headline all on my own. Right? It gnaws at me.

And I’ve done insane things like climbed more than five mountains, but when you look into them with more scrutiny, I’m not some technical rock climbing, glacier-summiting beast. I did the ones anyone can do with a regular pair of hiking boots, like Mount St Helens, which is lower to the ground since blowing off its top in the 80s, and barely qualifies as a mountain.

All my books have funded, but always at the last minute, and a huge amount comes from a large anonymous donor. I know for sure my brother was the mystery man who funded my first launch, my mountain-climbing book. He brought his special edition for me to sign at Christmas and didn’t realize there were different versions for the retailers. The other two times though…Mm. I’ve got my theories…

And then I think, wait, is this the worthiness problem Poppy used to talk about? That a woman’s stories will somehow never feel as big and important as a man’s, whether they’re simple or extraordinary?

Am I trying to squish myself into a box again, but this time, I beg for anonymous strangers to validate me with fame and cold, hard cash?

When I think about that, then I double-down on my intuitions. I’m living a life of deep and vibrant connections, of extra-spiritual and fantastical meanings. I contain worlds. I unleash multitudes. And I don’t need anyone else to tell me I’m okay because I truly and genuinely like myself.

I like me.

But still, these are the doubts. These are my frustrations.

I’ve lived ten lives in five years, and I’ve written about it in several well-reviewed books, and still. I’m not satisfied. It would be nice to have a little more external validation.

“Where’s Sanjay?” I ask Poppy.

“I believe your plus-one is right where you left him.” She leads me down the hotel hallway to the lounge where quiet music plays and writers engage in serious conversation. Only one person still peruses the dessert buffet. The stout, brown man fits a banoffee tart next to a cherry bakewell on a plate already loaded with scones, shortbread, a flapjack, and a mini toffee.

“At the buffet,” Poppy says.

I snort. “Again.”

“You know.” Poppy taps her lips, looks at me, then looks at him again. “His feet are larger than average.”

I lift my brows. “They are.”

“And he looks like a man who enjoys his share of second breakfasts…”

“Mmhm.”

“Do you ever think he, might possibly, just a little, resemble a hobbit?”

Sanjay sees us at that moment and his eyes light up. “There you are!”

Warmth rushes over me. I don’t think anyone has ever been this excited to see me, ever. It reminds me of long ago when I told Nic that I needed to be loved with sloppy Golden Retriever energy, that I was done with men who were fine with withholding. And Sanjay, with his sweet Mumbai accent and total honesty in his emotions, is probably the most well-adjusted and giving man I’ve ever known.

He points at his plate. “I saved you a mince pie. Your favorite!”

I giggle.

Poppy nods as if this has answered her question.

“You’re always hungry after you give a lecture.” He ushers me over to his table, offers Poppy a seat that she declines because she has to go do organizer things, and then brings me a glass of water and a cup of tea. “I enjoyed this lecture very much. You were brilliant.”

And all of me melts into goo. I swallow the tasty pie, sip my tea. “Thanks.”

“Ah, you are sad.”

“Oh, it’s partly the let-down of finishing, you know. But…yeah. I mean, it is an honor to be asked, but I wish that someday I’m not filling in a gap on a conference docket. I want to be invited because it’s me. You know? I wish people would come to hear me.”

Sanjay is a wilderness photographer, so he knows what I mean on a deep level. Getting featured in major magazines and documentaries regularly instead of last-minute, or as a fill-in, is also his dream.

But instead of turning my feelings around onto himself, he grins sweetly. “I came to hear you.”

And again, my heart squeezes.

He does it so selflessly, so unself-consciously. I just want to bear-hug him. And he’d let me, too. He’s incapable of being embarrassed. He’s happy, all the time, and I want to tuck his happiness into my pocket and keep it with me.

“That’s you,” I say instead. “But you’re a special case.”

“Um, Ms. Chandler?” A woman clutches a tattered book in her hand. She tucks her curly hair behind her ear nervously. “I’m so sorry to disturb you. I thought there would be a signing after the lecture, but when I got back from the bathroom, everyone was gone, and…um…I just…just…could you please sign?”

She thrusts my first book at me, A Year of Golden Stars.

I choke, then set aside my food and pat my pockets for a pen.

Sanjay’s way ahead of me. He slides our plates out of the way, hands me a pen from his shirt pocket, clicks it so the point is out. And then while I fumble for the title page, he tells her, “I really like this one.”

“It’s my favorite!” She claps her hands together. “I’ve read them all.”

“Kia Ora is also very good.”

 “Yes! The funniest part ever is on that alpaca farm when she holds up the finished sweater she’s made for her New Zealand boyfriend and realizes that the left sleeve is long enough to drag on the ground, and then she starts to think maybe her subconscious is telling her something about the future of her relationship. I could just picture the knuckle-dragger, and I about spit out my tea.”

“That was hilarious!” he agrees enthusiastically, not remotely bothered by the mention of a short-lived relationship that ended long before I met him.

“But this is the book that got me.” She gestures at A Year of Golden Stars, and shifts to talking more to me than to him. “The way you describe loneliness, and sitting in the temple and wishing so hard for something that was never going to be…I had a destructive relationship with my father, too. He’s in prison for it, actually. And when you wrote about how much your aunt loved you, and how you were worthy of her love, you’re worthy of all the love, and you’re actually fine exactly as you are…Nobody else understands what it’s like…and then you…did…” She tears up, waves her hands at her face. Her voice goes high-pitched. “Um, anyway, I reread it about twice a year. It gets me through the hard times. You know. Birthdays and holidays. So, um, I didn’t know if you’d have time to sign my whole collection, so I just brought my most important one.”

I finish personalizing the page, and then I hand the worn book back to her. “Thank you so much for telling me. I needed to hear this tonight.”

“Oh, right. Sorry again for disturbing you.” She backs away, tripping on her own feet. “Sorry.”

“Really,” I tell her.

“Yes, well, goodnight then.” She bobs her head, turns too fast, and bounces her backpack against the door frame as she leaves.

Aw. I know she feels awkward, and I wish there was a way I could express to her how much her words touched me.

Sanjay grins. “You see? She came for you. There were at least two of us. And next time? A whole theater.”

And I laugh from my heart.

We finish up with the conference and make it on the last train back to Cardiff. We get to Michelle’s cousin’s house at about 2 AM, which is really late for the poor parakeets, but they and the goldfish have held. I take Sanjay to bed. He’s unselfish in everything.

Everything.

Which isn’t to say he doesn’t have his own interests and dreams and goals. In the morning when I wander out onto the chilly back patio with a morning cup of tea, he sets aside his laptop, and his half-eaten breakfast, and focuses on me.

The screen shows the details of his next assignment. I sit beside him and read. “‘Driving the Carretera Austral, Patagonia’s Most Beautiful Highway.’ Three weeks?”

“I asked about having an assistant. They said there’s room in the cars, but no extra pay or living expenses.”

“So if I want to fly with you, I have to come up with the plane fare?”

The laughter leaves his eyes. “For the start.”

At this time of year, with no chance to bargain or budget-hunt or plan ahead, a flight from Wales to Patagonia is about four thousand pounds. Last night’s honorarium was less than two hundred, so, I’m quite a bit short.

It was only an idle idea, anyway. I’m supposed to start my next book, and Michelle’s been talking with a friend about touring the Gobi Desert. They want to take me because I’ve got an open invitation to visit my aunt’s schools. I could probably get us free lodging if they take care of the food. It’d be a good trade and an amazing thing to do, really.

But I kind of want to drive on a bumpy, unpaved highway through Chilean Patagonia.

Maybe I can do both.

I would, if it were up to me.

“Ah,” I stretch, drinking in the mist of the Welsh air, the beauty of the cold northern seas. My life is pretty good, mostly. I get paid to have adventures, to live in other people’s homes, to try on their lives like costumes and do a little dance, even though at the end of the night, I always take off the glass slippers and become, once more, me. “I regret not being rich.”

“And me.” Sanjay sighs. Then he eats a potato.

I seriously love this man.

If I want something, I can have it.

I’ve lived for the last five years on this principle. It’s never steered me wrong. The only tricky thing has been figuring out what I want, and I’m getting spookily good at tuning in to my true, fearless, beautiful desires.

So that’s why I say, “Um, why don’t you go ahead and tell them I’ll come?”

“You will?” He finishes chewing, swallows. “How are you going to do it?”

“I don’t know. I’ll figure something out.”

“Okay!” He grins, and it’s like sunshine blasting through rain. Little splinters pierce my heart, but they don’t hurt. They glow. He makes the call, completely confident that I’m going to figure something out. “Hello? Yes, I understand. I will be bringing an assistant. We’ll be fine. Thank you.”

My heart beats faster.

That’s normal.

The usual doubts fly in.

What am I doing? Really?

For five years, I’ve done everything I wanted.

Everything.

And for five years, that’s often meant leaping before I looked. Sure, I’ve sat with myself in some lonely places. I’ve relearned, multiple times, that it’s better to be alone than to travel with the wrong person. I am an alloromantic demisexual, after all, and I crave a relationship. I know I’m fine without one. But we want what we want, and this is what I want.

I don’t carry around big old bags full of fears and what-ifs. I live. Sanjay is the right person for me now.

I open my email and begin scrolling in case I missed any recent opportunities to quickly raise four grand. I’ve never raised that much before, but, it’s not the first time I’ve carried around a check because I forgot to cash it.

When something is right for me, opportunities open up. I get more and more excited. Possibilities and realities align, and the most amazing and unlikely coincidences happen for me.

Maybe it’s time to crowdfund another book. My titles are getting longer with every book I publish, so the joke is that my next one’s going to be a whole paragraph.

I’m turning in my last ghost-written book this week, so my writing schedule will soon be open. I was thinking my next book would be about solo traveling to the nine holiest sites in the world as a woman, although for Mecca the closest I got was Taif.

I could try to fund one about driving the Carretera Austral.

Or maybe there’s a grant I could apply for. It just has to arrive fast.

I’ve also been toying with writing a how-to book on writing memoirs. Since I’ve written six of them, I’m beginning to feel like I know what I’m doing. Plus it would give me something to sell when I’m invited last-minute to speak at conferences.

Every once in awhile, I feel like I should write about my year of traveling as a millionaire. My Year of Impossibles. I still remember how scared I was of everything, and how sad I often felt. How torn I was between Burr, a man who I put too much of myself into, and Nic, a man who never put anything into me. I could afford to do any activity I wanted, and yet, when I was in Tokyo I never left my hotel room. I rarely ventured from Kyoto, or Athens, or Brighton. I understand now why Nic was so impatient with me. I went to a city and sat there when I could have done so much more.

But even now, all these years later, it feels too raw. The me of that year was fragile, and I want to protect her, give her a hug, tell her it’s all going to be okay. She didn’t do anything wrong. Bad things happen sometimes. And most of the time, I don’t miss the million that should have been mine.

But sometimes, I do.

My brother once said a million’s not enough to live on. Recently, though, he recanted. As one of his acts of service, he looked at my average annual income and expenses and calculated that, invested in a diverse enough portfolio, I could in fact live off the interest income from a cool mill. Not only that, if I spent more months of a year bumming on a beach in the Philippines than partying in Zurich, I could live pretty easily even on the worst return.

Tomorrow, I will wake up like today, clear-eyed and strong. I am perfect as I am. I write words that matter, stories that touch others’ hearts. My being here in this world is important. It’s made a difference.

But today, I have a different want.

So, listen up world. Four thousand pounds. Or better yet, being rich, so I don’t have care so much about external validation. Right. Let’s make this happen!

Literally an instant later an email appears.

It’s from the trust’s lawyer. Mr. Schilling retired, and so I’ve been receiving correspondence from his successor.

Dear Katrina Chandler, beneficiary,

The legal judgments have all been resolved. The trustees affirmed that you satisfied the conditions of the will, and therefore, you will receive the full amount of the trust remaining, after taxes and fees, in the amounts as follows…

I skim down to the end.

…totaling two point seven million dollars.

Congratulations, Trina.

The money will be deposited into the account you specified at the close of business on…

I start to grin.

Everything’s turning out right for me.

It always has. It always will.

Yes, there are wrong choices. Wrong answers to bad question. It’s easy to get pulled down into them, mired in the old solutions, get lost in the well-explored dead ends.

I’m still certain that if I’d taken the old job at the college, I’d have been hit by a car crossing the street, just like Sorsha was as a little kid, and I wouldn’t see a cent of the trust right now. It’d all go to paying off my medical debt.

I know it for a fact.

This, though. This is mine, free and clear.

It’s mine because I want it.

Because I’m living my absolute best life.

I have everything I’ve ever wanted.

The Trina of old would never have crossed paths with a man like Sanjay.

Or she would have been so wrapped up in herself that she wouldn’t have seen him as a possibility.

But me, right now, can have him.

I can have a man who’s totally uncomplicated, who’s emotionally resilient, who’s as expressive and confident and loving as me.

Maybe we’ll even have a family. He says he’s fine with spoiling his nieces and nephews, just like I do with Sorsha’s kids, but we’re leaving our options open. We’ve already agreed on the names of our first born. If we have a boy, we’ll name him Ajay Dara, and if we have a girl, we’ll name her Sephina Faria. Faria means sweet, loving, kind, and I like it a lot. It has a good rhythm.

Things that excite me often come true. So, maybe, someday…

Because, you see, I can have anything.

Anything I choose.

I am living my dream.

And this is exactly where I want to be.