The Rescue - Nicholas Sparks [37]
Of course, like any four-year-old, he wasn’t able to focus on much more than keeping his balance and trying to have fun. To him, riding his bike was an adventure (especially when Mom was doing it, too), and he rode with reckless abandon. Even though traffic was light, Denise found herself shouting instructions every few seconds.
“Stay close to Mommy. . . .”
“Stop!”
“Don’t go in the road. . . .”
“Stop!”
“Pull over, honey, a car’s coming. . . .”
“Stop!”
“Watch out for the hole. . . .”
“Stop!”
“Don’t go so fast. . . .”
“Stop!”
“Stop” was the only command he really understood, and whenever she said it, he’d hit the brakes, put his feet on the ground, then turn around with a big toothy grin, as if to say, This is so much fun. Why’re you so upset?
Denise was a nervous wreck by the time they reached the post office.
She knew then and there that riding a bicycle just wasn’t going to cut it, and she decided to ask Ray for two extra shifts a week for the time being. Pay off the hospital deductible, save every penny, and maybe she’d be able to afford another car in a couple of months.
A couple of months?
She’d probably go nuts by then.
Standing in line—there was always a line at the post office—Denise wiped the perspiration from her forehead and hoped her deodorant was working. That was another thing she hadn’t exactly expected when she’d started out from the house this morning. Riding a bike wasn’t simply an inconvenience, it was work, especially for someone who hadn’t ridden in a while. Her legs were tired, she knew her butt would be sore tomorrow, and she could feel the sweat dripping between her breasts and down her back. She tried to maintain a little distance between herself and the others in line so as not to offend them. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice.
A minute later she stood in front of the counter and received her stamps. After writing a check, she slipped her checkbook and stamps into her purse and walked back outside. She and Kyle hopped on their bikes and headed toward the market.
Edenton had a small downtown, but from a historic perspective the town was a gem. Homes dated back to the early 1800s, and nearly all had been restored to their former glory over the past thirty years. Giant oak trees lined both sides of the street and shaded the roads, providing pleasant cover from the heat of the sun.
Though Edenton had a supermarket, it was on the other side of town, and Denise decided to drop into Merchants instead, a store that had graced the town since the 1940s. It was old-fashioned in every way imaginable and a marvel of supply. The store sold everything from food to bait to automotive supplies, offered videos for rent, and had a small grill off to one side where they could cook up something on the spot. Adding to the atmosphere were four rocking chairs and a bench out front, where a regular group of locals dropped by for coffee in the mornings.
The store itself was small—maybe a few thousand square feet—and it always amazed Denise when she saw how many different items they could squeeze onto the shelves. Denise filled a small plastic basket with the few things she needed—milk, oatmeal, cheese, eggs, bread, bananas, Cheerios, macaroni and cheese, Ritz crackers, and candy (for working with Kyle)—then went to the register. Her total came to less than she expected, which was good, but unlike the supermarket, the store didn’t offer plastic bags to pack them in. Instead the owner—a man with neatly combed white hair and thick bushy eyebrows—packed everything into two brown paper bags.
And that, of course, was a problem she’d overlooked.
She would have preferred plastic so she could have slipped the loops over her handlebars—but bags? How was she going to get all this home? Two arms, two bags, two handles on the bike—it just didn’t add up. Especially when she had to watch out for Kyle.