Tomorrow's Sun (Lost Sanctuary) - By Becky Melby Page 0,13
for it, don’t you, Bob?”
Emily glared at the bike. Her therapist had said he didn’t think she was quite ready. But that was a week ago. After all the hours she’d logged on a stationary bike in therapy, how different could this possibly be? She reached in the van for her GPS and hooked it to the handlebars as it searched for a restaurant. Looping the handles of her purse over her shoulders like a backpack, she shoved her cane crosswise beneath it and freed the bike.
“Hi.” The small, disembodied voice startled her.
“Hello?”
“Hi.” This time it was a little louder, but she couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Where are you?”
“Up here.”
Emily walked around the front of the van and stared at the trees that ran between her house and the bridge. A bright green shoe wiggled about five feet off the ground. Like the picture-search pages her preschoolers loved, the rest of Michael blended with the tree. “What are you doing up there?”
“Getting a frog. Wanna see?”
“Sure.” She pulled out her cane and made her way across the bumpy lawn. “You’re camouflaged.”
“Like a tree frog?”
“Yep. All I can see is one of your Crocs.” She ducked under a low branch. The bark was shiny and slightly pinkish. Growing up in Michigan, she’d spent half her childhood playing in apple trees. Would this one bear fruit? “There you are. You’re a really good hider.”
“Wanna hold him?” Michael sat on a branch about a foot above her head. She stood eye-to-eye with a Sponge Bob Band-Aid.
She held cupped hands up to him. “Sure.”
Michael opened his hands slowly into hers. The soft little body squirmed.
“Are you going to keep him?”
“For as long as Mom says. She doesn’t like animals.” His eyes widened. “Could I keep him at your house?”
Something warm and wet dripped through her fingers. “Just for a day, okay? He won’t live very long if he’s not free.”
“Okay. Just for a day.” Michael reached out for the frog. “His name is Squiggles.”
“He’s kind of wet.”
“Frogs do that.” Small warm hands closed over hers.
Emily swallowed hard. “Are you getting down now?”
“Um. I can’t. Can you get me down?”
“Sure.” The word scraped her throat. She was no longer under lifting restrictions, but her emotions weren’t knitting in sync with her bones. She took the kind of breath that empowered weight lifters. Michael and Squiggles slid into her waiting arms.
“Do you have a box or a jar or something we can put holes in?” Large brown eyes stared up at her.
“I think I have just the thing. A can I found in the cellar. Actually, there’s already a frog in it.”
So maybe there were a few differences between spinning in therapy and the real thing. One, she had to get on, and two, she had to get off. She eased the kickstand back then tried to figure out her next move. After a moment, she tipped it toward her and lifted her leg over the crossbar then righted it. With a deep breath for courage, she stepped on one pedal, lifted her other foot off the ground, and began pedaling. “Whoo-hoo!” She turned onto the highway with a freedom she hadn’t experienced in well over a year.
Her GPS led her to a corner restaurant in Waterford. Miraculously, she dismounted without making a total fool of herself. Walking into the restaurant was another story. She had a love/hate relationship with the piece of curved metal in her right hand. At the moment, sidling to the door like a born-on-a-horse cowpoke, she was grateful for it.
A whiteboard just inside the restaurant advertised down-home specials. A potted aloe plant decorated the juice dispenser behind the cash register. Baskets filled with thick-sliced bread in plastic wrap lined the backsplash in the waitress station. It had the feel of all small-town restaurants—the kind of place where people walked in and said, “I’ll have the usual.”
The thought had no sooner materialized than a waitress called across the room to a man in bib overalls sitting in a booth, gnarled hands folded on the table. “Belgian waffles, Tom?”
The man nodded. “Of course.”
Emily followed the hostess past the counter to a table beside a floor-to-ceiling mural. Two pillars flanked a fountain and a blue lake shimmered in the background.
The left-hand page of the menu tempted Mexican specials like 3 Tacos De Chorizo Con Huevos. Would she someday wake up hungry for chorizo sausage first thing in the morning? Would she someday wake up hungry?