Page 43 of Now and Again

Don’t condescend me. You have no idea of the responsibilities on my shoulders.

That bastard. Riley put her phone away and started peddling a bit harder. What kind of person would let their spouse deal with this alone? Mike Powell, that was who. Riley started to feel the burn in her quads. But she paid it no heed as she thought about her mother, who’d gone through this too. Riley’s bike was starting to judder a bit, but she didn’t notice. That sociopathic sonofabitch never cared for anything but his job…

‘Whoa!’ yelled India as Riley’s bike tipped, her feet still strapped in, Riley clanking right over. She screamed, and she heard the instructor cry out, ‘Yeah! That’s the burn!’

‘No, you idiot!’ India yelled. ‘We’ve got an accident.’

The instructor came running through the bikes, all of them slowing down, everyone turning back to look. The instructor looked down at Riley. ‘Oh no! I was supposed to put a sign on this bike because it…’ He stopped himself mid-sentence. ‘I mean, are you ok?’

He and India righted the bike, and Riley unstrapped herself and got off it. She dusted herself down and checked for injuries. A bruised quad and carpet burn on her ankle was the worst of it. Though India didn’t agree. ‘I heard what you said, and I’ll have your bloody job! You nearly killed her,’ she threatened the trembling instructor.

‘India, leave it,’ Riley said. ‘Just get that bike out of here, would you?’ she told the instructor. The man, almost in tears, nodded violently. ‘I will,’ he vowed.

Riley hobbled off, India attending her the entire way in quite an unnecessary fashion. ‘I’m fine,’ Riley told her. ‘I just need to go home.’

India sighed. ‘Alright, but keep your weight off of it. Text me if you decide to sue!’

When Riley got home, Juliet took one look at the way she walked in and said, ‘What’s happened?’

‘Nothing,’ Riley said, limping in. ‘Slight spin bike incident. So, how’s Mia doing?’

‘Better than you! Sit down.’ She ran off to the kitchen, leaving Mia looking at Riley as she sat down and inspected her ankle. Mia poked the graze. ‘Does that hurt?’

‘Yes, Mia,’ Riley winced.

‘How about here?’ she asked, poking an inch over to the left.

‘Yep, still hurts.’

‘So what happened, the whole story?’ Juliet demanded as she came in with a first aid kit.

Riley explained the accident, though she left out the bit about cycling too fast because she was angry about childhood wounds. ‘Got me out of the class, though,’ she finished with a grin. Juliet tore open a sachet and extracted an antibacterial wipe. ‘You know, I really don’t need all this fuss,’ Riley told her.

‘I’m taking precautions. Better two minutes’ work now than an infected leg later.’

‘What’s infected?’ Mia asked.

‘It’s when your cut goes weird and your leg drops off,’ Riley said.

Mia’s eyes widened. ‘What?’

‘She’s making a joke,’ Juliet said with a warning look to Riley as she dabbed the graze.

Mia looked down at her arm. She had a small, almost healed cut there. ‘Will my arm fall off?’ she asked.

Riley tutted at herself. ‘No, I’m sorry. Juliet was right. I was just making a silly joke. My leg and your arm are not going to fall off, OK?’

Juliet stuck a large plaster on Riley’s leg. She turned to Mia. ‘But just to be sure, let’s do you next.’ Mia held out her arm, and Juliet stuck a plaster on it. Mia looked relieved. ‘Can I colour?’

‘Yep,’ Juliet smiled, and Mia went to her living room toy box and grabbed her colouring book and crayons. She sat down on the floor and went right to work.

‘Sorry,’ Riley said to Juliet, hoping she wasn’t too pissed off at her for freaking Mia out.

Juliet shook her head. ‘Easily done. I told her last week that it was raining cats and dogs, and she screamed her head off.’

Riley guffawed. ‘You’d think she’d like that, a load of cats and dogs coming out of the sky.’

‘She’s got a pretty good grip on how gravity works. She thought they would all splat and die. Which they would, so she had me there.’

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