Retreat by Liv James

She might
not have been able to handle that kind of set back with everything else that
was going on.
         She walked back to the living room and
plopped down, picking up the phone to call her parents to let them know she was
back. She was disappointed to find there was no dial tone. It made sense. There
was a good reason to leave the power and water on so the house would be lightly
heated during the harsh winter months, but the phone had no value. Getting a
new cell phone would have to be a top priority.
         Clara spent the rest of the evening
exploring the house again, going through her old things and finding memories
everywhere she searched.
         In one box she found a neatly framed photo of
her grandmother, which she placed on the coffee table. The shot was snapped out
on the front porch on the day Clara graduated from high school. Grammy was
wearing a blue dress that hung loosely on her small frame. She was leaning
against the porch railing, smiling down at Clara in the yard. It had been a
good day, Clara recalled, with everyone around her.
         When she was done rooting around, she
plugged in the refrigerator, popped the beer and an extra water bottle inside
and closed the door to let in cool down. Tomorrow she’d have to stop at the
grocery store to stock up on food and paper products.
         She was amazed at how easily she felt at
home, when only two days before her life had been on a completely different
trajectory. The familiar comfort of the bungalow helped, although deep down she
knew that eventually she’d have to surface and when she did, Brighton
would once again be the confining place she’d worked so hard to get away from.
But tonight, she relished the comfort and safety of her grandmother’s memory.

 
 
         It was nearly ten o’clock when Clara opened her eyes the next morning.
She’d slept with the windows open, the fresh air lulling her into a deep sleep.
She may have kept snoozing if it wasn’t for the thunder of motorboats kicking
up on the lake. It was Saturday, so the activity would hit full-throttle by noon .
         She slipped back into the sweats she’d
found, brushed her teeth and tied her hair back in a high ponytail. She dug
around in her college box and found an old walkman with a radio tuner and a
rechargeable battery. She set it to charge while she finished off the water
bottle and a packet of trail mix left over from the drive. When the battery was
nearly charged she headed out toward the park on the eastern side of the lake.
         She decided to go for a run, something
she’d sworn off after leaving Fort
Worth. It seemed so silly now to turn her back on her
own health because of some potentially painful associations. As she set out
down the heavily mulched trail she no longer cared if running brought back
memories of competing with Jon or watching the muscles in his broad back flex
when he stretched his long legs to warm up. He’d run cross-country in high
school and college, allowing him to easily cream her when it came to distance,
but she was faster on the sprints.
         David, on the other hand, limited his
exercise to swinging a golf club and climbing back into the cart with his
regular foursome. She sneered at the memory of David in his golf shorts as she
stepped onto the loosely paved track that encircled the park.
         It didn’t take very long for Clara to
realize that a year off was like a death sentence to a runner. The music from
the walkman thundered in her ears but it wasn’t enough to overcome her rigid
muscles. She pushed harder, making each stride longer, each footfall solid.
         The sky had grown overcast and threatened
to open up at any moment, to drench her in warm spring rain. She kept going,
blocking out the picnic pavilion, the tall trees swaying, the heavyset woman in
the blue jogging suit walking her Labrador on
the other side of the trail.
         Harder.
         She was vaguely aware that her