Gossamer by Rayna Alexander

Author:Rayna Alexander [Alexander, Rayna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Debra J Alexander
Published: 2022-06-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

COUNTDOWN – 23 HOURS, 40 MINUTES

I shouldn’t have taken the police cruiser, but I needed a vehicle, and Prof had his own. Besides, his guilt trip had angered me.

I snaked my way toward the West Side Highway hoping the northbound side would have fewer crashed cars than Riverside Drive. Prof and I had once watched a few episodes of an old zombie apocalypse show where the evacuation road out of the city looked like an abandoned used car lot, but the inbound side was empty. I counted on something similar. Morning rush hour traffic within Manhattan is generally southbound, so when I arrived at the 72nd street on-ramp, the Bronx-bound highway was nearly devoid of vehicles.

A knot formed in my stomach as I passed my beloved bridge where several cars and a truck teetered on the edge of the lower deck. After the bridge, the straight, boring West Side Highway turned into a beautiful, fun stretch of road that had historically distracted me from my troubles. I had learned to drive on the sharp curves of the Henry Hudson Parkway, named for the river that stretched beside it. As a teen, the road had turned me into a wannabe race car driver each time I maneuvered it. Now, I grinned as I gunned the engine and swerved through the turns.

On the Bronx side of the Henry Hudson Bridge, my childhood neighborhood of Riverdale unfolded before me. I drove past the old but upscale low-rise apartment buildings toward the upper-class neighborhood of historic homes where my mother had settled after my father died.

If a fairy tale neighborhood of tiny forest cottages had grown to adulthood, it would be Fieldston. As I pulled into my mother’s driveway, I suddenly yearned for a long jog through the uneven cobblestone streets under the shade of well-established trees. That had always helped me to work out my problems, and betraying the two men I loved most was a huge stomach-churning issue. Toss in the billions who would die, and I fleetingly wished one of these giant weeping willows would fall down and flatten me.

I wanted Mom’s help with my dilemma but couldn’t yet bring myself to tell her what I had done, so I walked through a wrought-iron gate into what I used to call my secret garden. When we had moved in, we found a kid-sized replica of our house hidden within the overgrown honeysuckle and forsythia bushes. I think Mom had secretly hoped that involving me in the cleanup would unlock some recessive preservation gene, but a soldier hacking through the jungles of ‘Nam had better fit my fantasies. Vietnam. Great-grand-dad risked his life there and I’m turning my back on his legacy.

Guilt forced me to flee the scene of good childhood memories toward the front door, which I opened cautiously so as not to alarm anyone inside. “Hello?”

I looked left as I walked through the door, and smiled at seeing Marcus’ favorite spot, an airy sitting room with floor to ceiling bookshelves.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.