Chapter Five“Thank you,” Lydia breathed into the sky.
A night so long she’d thought it would never end; a dawn so gray she hated to burrow out of her blankets. The shower spurted scalding hot, then cold, then hot again. The grease stains she’d scrubbed out of her jeans had reappeared when they dried. But under the Blue Moon Motel sign, a scrawny rhododendron bush had erupted into bloom. Through a hole in the quilted clouds, one sunbeam poured down and lit it up—a vibrant, exuberant dollop of pink.
She stretched behind the steering wheel: neck, shoulders, back, legs. You’re OK, Lydia. You made it out of Dodge. You have a job, birds are singing, flowers are blooming, the car runs, and daylight comes earlier every morning.
“Hey,” Mudge called from the grill as she came through the Back End
