Rescue Me (Butler Island) Read Online Free Page B

and smiled. “I suppose. What position?”
    “Receiver.”
    “And that means…?”
    He smiled. “I catch the ball; make touchdowns.”
    “So you’re one of those guys that do those silly dances
in the end zone?”
    “Why don’t you come to the game tonight and find out?” he
proposed.
    And that’s precisely what she’d done. She’d sat in the
bleachers, chanting the Marlins to victory along with her peers. And when her
football hero caught the winning touchdown, he dropped the ball, celebrating
the team’s six-point gain with a spur-of-the-moment back flip.
    The home crowd went wild as the band played a victorious
tune. And as he returned to the sideline, Jimmy’s milk chocolate gaze sought
and found hers. She couldn’t deny the shiver of excitement that’d surged down
her spine; his performance had been choreographed with her in mind.
    Lana gained a boyfriend and encountered her first real kiss that evening. The rest was history.
    Collapsing onto the weathered tan recliner Jimmy had
spent countless hours lounging in when he was alive, she took a gulp of white
zinfandel and sighed. She desperately needed a change. Everywhere she looked
she was accosted with memories of Jimmy and the promise of what might have
been.
    In the beginning the familiarity of his belongings
brought an odd sense of comfort. Like he was away on shift at the fire station
(a very long shift) and was expected to return home at any moment. Sometimes,
after she’d put Connor to bed at night, she’d sit in this chair, listening for
the sound of Jimmy’s keys rattling… Of course, that’d never happened. Her
husband was buried in a white casket six-feet below ground.
    He wasn’t coming back.
    More than anything she wanted to wallow in her despair.
Wanted to curl up in a ball and cry until her body shriveled from dehydration.
But she couldn’t. She refused to surrender to the insanity nipping at her
heels. Connor had already lost his daddy; he didn’t deserve to lose his mommy,
too.
    Glancing around the room, she conceded that the “change”
she so desperately needed had to begin with her environment. Maybe she needed
to purchase new furniture or redecorate. Yeah, that was a good place to start.
    It was time to forge ahead with life on her own two feet.
Time to take charge as the head of the household. Time to cease her
procrastination.
    Time to begin healing.
     
     
    “Okay, let’s put your Spiderman mask on and then we’ll be
ready to go”, said Lana as she reached for the thin spandex material lying on
the coffee table. She carefully placed it over Connor’s head and fastened the
Velcro along the back. “There. Can you see?”
    “I don’t gotta see good, Mommy; I can use my spider
sense”, he assured her.
    Lana smiled at her little superhero. “You’re right—I keep
forgetting. Grab your trick-or-treat bag and let’s go.”
    If it were up to her, she’d forego the whole
trick-or-treating thing altogether this year. She was more than happy to stay
in, stuff her face with buttered popcorn, and watch reruns of old scary movies.
Every time Lana left the house—for groceries, PTA meetings, for work—she was
bombarded with inquiries from nosy residents.
    “ How’re you holdin’ up ?”, or “ How’ve you been ?”
or “ Can we do anything to help ?” became tiresome rather quickly.
    She fully understood the repetitious questions, and the
concerned residents that fielded them, meant no malice. People were just
curious and were only trying to be nice. But just once she’d like to answer
truthfully, explain how she struggled to get out of bed every morning and
typically cried herself to sleep most nights.
    That was one surefire way to end the curious
inquisitions.
    As tempting as it was, she was raised to be polite. And
so she’d paste a grin on her face tonight as she accompanied Connor—ahem, Spiderman —through
the neighborhood, even if it killed her. Connor had lost so much this year
already; faced an