Read Between Octobers Bk 1, Savor The Days Series for Free Online Page A

the
kids at school and sending word to their teachers that
they’d be absent on Wednesday to observe their father’s passing, I
got home just in time to stop Arnold, Sol’s big dumb dog, from
chewing through a fence board. Once he was settled in his kennel, I
fixed the board and made his breakfast. Some leftover brown rice
and chicken broth mixed with his regular food. I set the bowl in
front of him, told him what a good boy he was, and got started on
the housework.
    An hour later, I was done. I turned on some
music and watched through the glass door as Arnold ignored the food
in his bowl. Maybe he needed to work up an appetite.
    The weather was cool and sunny. A light
breeze drifted in from the coast giving the air a briny smell that
melded with the scent of the surrounding trees. We headed down the
road and jogged around the park, twice. Both of us were panting
when we got back to the top of my hill.
    After a shower, while raking the brush
through my hair, I remembered my phone. The battery was probably
completely dead. I reached for my sweatshirt and checked the
pockets. Then, searched the jeans crumpled in the pile of laundry.
I wanted to panic after the first sweep of my purse turned up
nothing, and started emptying each compartment onto the kitchen
counter. Out poured everything I anticipated, except my cell
phone.
    I perched on the arm of the sofa,
trying to think. I asked Noah to get it for me, put it in my
sweater pocket. I used it to check the time in the hall while I
waited. The elevator!
    I grabbed the house phone and called Lily.
After explaining what I suspect had happened, she connected me to
the maintenance office.
    How could I have been so careless? The
pictures! I’d never put them into the computer. Noah offered to do
it a hundred times, but I refused, saying I would do it myself.
Truthfully, I didn’t like the idea of changing anything. I wanted
the phone to stay the way it was when it belonged to Sol. It was
the only thing that survived the accident. I had to get it
back.
    Nauseated and impatient, I waited as the
phone rang over and over. On the fifth ring that felt like the
fiftieth, a machine picked up. I left a message, automatically
looking at the time. They had to be out for lunch.
    On the way back to the parking garage, I
couldn’t let myself think about what it would mean, how much it
would hurt to lose his cell phone. Instead, I concentrated on
getting back to check that elevator as soon as possible. On the
way, I was forced to stop at every single light in the city between
my house and Lily’s office. I got stuck behind the slowest drivers
in the history of motorized transportation. When I changed lanes, a
diesel truck ended up in front of me. When I tried to move around,
a taxi cut me off. After that, it was a garbage truck. It seemed
everyone was intent on making sure I had no access to lanes of
moving traffic. I wanted to scream.
    Finally, I saw the entrance of the parking
garage. The sign out front read, “Lot Full.” I fought back the
tears and parked in the first opening I found out on the street,
nearly two blocks away.
    According to Juan in maintenance, the
elevator had been running smoothly for over an hour and no one had
returned or reported finding a cell phone. When he saw me fighting
back the tears, he let me look through the space myself—the lost
and found, too. But all I found were umbrellas, single gloves, and
reading glasses.
    Returning to my car heart-broken and empty
handed, I was forced to learn another hard lesson. Parking by a
hydrant was never as convenient as it seemed. I realized this as I
watched my Jeep being hauled down the street by a tow truck. I
prayed for strength and forgiveness, fighting the desire to curse
the driver for refusing to let me drive away because my car was
already chained.
    “What does that mean?” I asked
incredulously.
    “It means too damn bad. You’re blocking a
hydrant and you’re gettin’ towed.” He rubbed his greasy hand