Installment #2...Cynthia Browder

Installment #2

Cynthia Browder

 

     Cynthia pushed the gear shift up to “P”, set the emergency brake, and turned the key to the off position.  The little Mazda quietly shut down.  She loved this car.  There was just something about a Mazda and the way it handled.  Sporty.  That was it.  Blue would not have been her first choice, but when Rick had seen it on the lot and knew it was the owners demo car he had lit up.  That would drop the price several thousand dollars and he had been looking for something dependable for Cyndi and he had found it!

     And he was right.  It was a four door, but small with four cylinders.  The inside was as nice as a luxury car at an economy price.  The gas mileage was phenomenal and that was good.  He drove a little Mazda Sundowner pickup that he loved, but Cyndi needed a car.  So the deal had been made. 

     Before she opened the door, she remembered back to the visit from the state patrol a year ago.  Rick had been late getting home from work and she had began to worry.  She knew when she opened the door why the trooper was there as soon as she saw him.  The little gray Sundowner pickup had been no match for the big Ford ¾ ton pickup that had crossed the center line and hit him head-on.

     He was in the hospital and he would drive her there.  It was not good.  Was there someone the trooper could call?  No one near.  The kids were back in Kansas.  Oh, wait!  Yes, he had kids.  Right here in Pueblo, Colorado.  Right up the street actually.  Yes, call them.    Thank you. 

     And so she had met the two girls at the hospital.  Allen and Fred were further and would be flying in as soon as they could get a flight.  She had set through the night with Angie and Martha.  Rick was still as death.  Since there was no one to tell them not to, the EMT’s had placed him on life support.  They prayed, but there were no signs of life.  The boys came the next day and it was the same.  And so it stayed in that limbo for three weeks.  Feeding tubes giving him nourishment, a respirator breathing for him, a catheter to empty him, nurses to bathe him.  The boys went home.  The girls returned to their lives.  And Cynthia waited.

     When the waiting became too much, she hired an attorney.  Yes, he could be unhooked.  There were no signs of life on any of the screens.  And so she called the kids together.  She presented the facts.  She told them the cold, hard facts, which they already knew.  Five signatures later, with hospice in the room, the ventilator was turned off, and the room echoed with Rick breathing in the same rhythm as the respirator had breathed when it was hooked up and working.  Cynthia knew a moment of hope.  She held that hope for the next few hours.  She knew it was just muscles doing what they had been trained to do, but still she hoped.  At 5:26 the next morning, that stopped and Rick Browder’s spirit left his body.

     She was a widow at the age of 51.  She would have no one to hold her when she cried.  No one to share her joys with at the end of the day.  She would eat alone, walk alone, dream alone.  She suddenly began to cry alone in the stillness of the car.  The road ahead that was her life suddenly became very long and desolate.  Life was not fair and her sadness was slowly replaced by an anger that threatened to consume her.  Then she laughed.  She was remembering the single piece of paper that the hospice worker had given her.  The title had been The Normal stages of Grief.  Yes, as surprising as tonight had been, it was normal. She sighed as she picked up her purse, opened the car door and headed into her home.

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From the back cover

Chapter One...Loose Ends
Lou Mercer

Meg Parker led a simple life.  She was a widow of three years and lived on a chicken farm at the foot of the mighty Rockie Mountains.  Life was good and her little store on eBay made her extra spending money.  But snow and wildlife were not the only things lurking in the forest above her house.  Nor did it stay in the forest for long.

Marshall Purcell came home a wounded veteran from vietnam.  He still had his dreams, but they were of an incestuous past that threatened to consume him.

When Meg and Marshall met it seemed an inconsequential meeting, but it changed both their lives forever.  And change is not always a good thing.

This is adult fiction at its best without all the sex.  Well, maybe just a little bit. 

About the author.  Lou Mercer was born in Nickerson, Kansas. She came to Pueblo, Colorado in 1977 and is now a product of the majestic Rockie Mountains