Frank Summers wandered into his garage in search of a
project. After thirty years as an emergency room surgeon at Phoenix General,
he’d been forced to retire when PG was gobbled up by one of those
hospital corporations run by accountants.
In his
first month of retirement he’d swum a thousand laps in his pool, mastered
thirty new iPhone apps, read five forgettable novels and played one round of
golf with his wife, Lucy.
Car keys in
hand, Lucy entered the garage. “What are you doing out here, Frank?” Her
blondish hair was ponytailed and she was wearing jeans and a tee-shirt. Her
animal shelter uniform.
Lucy, who’d retired ten years ago,
had been no more excited about Frank’s retirement than Frank. She played golf
three days a week, volunteered at the shelter on weekends, and took writing
classes at the college. She was busier than when the kids were at home. And
happier. Frank didn’t want to interfere with her life.
“I thought I’d clean the garage.”
She wrinkled her nose. “In this
heat? Do something fun.” She pointed to the mountain bikes hanging from the
ceiling. “Take Frank Jr.’s bike. You can ride along the canal all the way to 75th
Avenue.”
“Good idea.
I haven’t been on those mountain preserve trails in years.”
“Not the
trails, Frank. The bike path. Leave the saguaros for the kids.”
<>
Frank
cruised through the mountain preserve on the novice trail that circumnavigated
the mountains. Not as exciting as the ER, but it beat the hell out of golf. Two
girls passed him and took the intermediate trail that branched off to the
right. Frank followed them. He missed his nurses. The close quarters of the
operating room. The camaraderie. The not-so-innocent touches.
The trail
got rougher – pebbled with chunks of white granite and guarded by bottle cacti
and some distant saguaros. It was high noon, blistering hot and eerily quiet.
Everyone had gone home – even the birds. He rounded a large outcropping and
headed downhill, with mountainside to his left and steep valley to his right.
He tugged on his helmet strap, then squeezed the brakes.
It was a
rush. His heart beat wildly as the bike careened down the rocky pathway. And
then the image of Inez in her hot tub – her bronze breasts and brown nipples
luminous in the foamy water – popped into his head, uninvited. She’d been his
last ER nurse.
A bowling-ball chunk of granite
loomed in the center of the trail. Frank steered hard to his left, but the bike
fishtailed into the wall, shot back across the path, hit another rock and went
airborne.
Frank lost his grip and hurtled into
space.
His son’s twenty-year old helmet
smashed into the mountainside and split like a walnut, but when Frank stopped
bouncing fifty feet below the edge of the trail he was still conscious. The
helmet had done its job. Frank wouldn’t die from a head injury. However, as he
assessed his situation, he found little reason for optimism. His palms had been
filleted, his right ankle severely sprained and he had at least four broken
ribs, one of which had punctured his lung. With the stifling heat and the
oozing wounds he figured he had three hours, tops.
The bike with his iPhone and water were a
hundred feet farther down the mountainside. The trail ledge was closer, but
with his hands nearly useless, he couldn’t climb. He rolled over. The broken
rib stabbed his lung. He took shallow breaths and when his heart stopped racing
he rolled over again.
It took him two hours to reach his
bike. His water bottle was missing. He unsnapped the seatbag with his teeth and
coaxed the iPhone out of its pocket.
No bars.
Fucking retirement really sucked.
He closed his eyes, then remembered
the pictures. He pressed his bloody fingertip on the photo app and opened the
Nurses folder.
Crazy Kelly on her boat.
Bonita flashing her snake tats.
Wendy giving him the finger.
Karen.
Sami.
Rebecca.
Inez in all her hot-tub glory.
One last look, then he deleted the
folder.
He opened the family album and
thumbed to the photo of Lucy and him on the beach at Malibu.
So young. So happy. So in love.
He kissed the screen and propped the
phone on a rock so he could see it as he lay on the mountainside.
<>
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