Of course, things had. That was the nature of life. Kids get older. Marriages evolve. In the last ten years, Don had gotten busier as the congregation expanded. There was the men’s Bible group to run, the annual couples’ retreat to organize, the youth pastors to mentor. When the pandemic happened, Don had started streaming Sunday services, which had become surprisingly popular. The church had gotten more members, and Don had gotten more attention, which had eventually meant more money. There was enough to pay for Morgan’s college now; enough to take more vacations, enough to say that their struggling days were over… and if Don was barely home, if he was distant and distracted when he was around, that seemed a reasonable trade-off for the chance to bring the Gospel to so many more new believers.
A time for every purpose under heaven, Lily told herself. Sweet little babies became beautiful young women. Handsome young husbands became still-handsome middle-aged men. They get distinguished silver hair and lines around their eyes and new veneers on their teeth, an expense Don justified because of all the people watching him in high definition. Do you really think they’ll decide to give their hearts to Jesus because your teeth are extra shiny? Lily had thought, before chiding herself for being uncharitable.
Daughters grow up. Husbands buy shiny new teeth. And young brides become middle-aged moms, and end up on crowded bike paths, half a mile behind their daughters, trying not to fall.
“Oh, there’s the bridge!” said the old lady, and pointed. Lily jerked her head up, long enough to glimpse the George Washington Bridge stretching over the Hudson.
“Beautiful,” she said, without turning her head, feeling the other rider’s scrutiny.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” the older woman asked.
“Fine,” Lily said, trying to sound like she meant it as the path curved, angling into a short, steep uphill.
“Downshift!” the other woman called merrily… too late for Lily, who almost fell off her bike because she was in too high a gear to keep pedaling. She bit her lip and pushed her bike up the hill, half-walking, half-jogging, trying not to fall too far behind as the group pedaled under the bridge and into the Bronx.
“And watch out for the switchbacks!” she heard the other woman call.
The what? Lily had time to think before she saw the section of path she was on end in a hairpin turn. She almost fell… but she didn’t. She swung her bike around the turn, and then around the next one, again and again until she’d ridden off the path and onto the street, where the rest of the group was waiting.
“I did it,” Lily whispered to herself, pedaling along the pavement. Then she said it again, out loud. “I did it!”
“On your left!” someone shouted, the instant before he or she went whipping past her in a blur of pumping legs and spinning wheels.
“Oh, sugar!” Lily squeaked, and jerked the handlebars. Her front tire hit the curb, and suddenly the bike was sliding out from underneath her and the ground was rushing up to meet her. Lily fell onto the street with a bone-jarring thud, her left hip and shoulder taking most of the impact, the bike landing on top of her. She could feel herself bleeding where the pedal’s serrated teeth had scraped the meat of her calf.
Lily closed her eyes. This was a mistake, she thought. She wasn’t ready for this kind of trip, for riding this kind of distance, day after day after day. They should have rescheduled, waited until next summer, so that Don and Morgan could ride, like they’d planned, and Lily could do her handful of miles, and meet them for lunch. But Morgan had been so insistent, so determined that it had to be this trip, this summer. Please, Mom, it looks like so much fun, and I really want to see Niagara Falls, Olivia said it was so beautiful and We’ll just be rattling around the house with Daddy gone. Morgan had seemed frantic, almost desperate to get Lily to agree, and when Lily had, her daughter had hugged her, unprompted. She’d seemed so happy. So where was Morgan now that Lily was on the ground, bleeding, with her bicycle on top of her? Somewhere in the distance, oblivious, and getting farther and farther away.
“Are you okay?” asked the sag wagon driver—Jasper, Lily remembered—who’d appeared out of nowhere and was bending over Lily, picking up the bike, then offering her his hand.
Lily made herself nod, and Jasper helped her to her feet.
“I’m sorry,” Lily said.
“Why are you sorry?” Jasper asked. “You didn’t fall on purpose, did you?” He lifted her bike over the curb, leaned it against a tree, and guided Lily toward a bench. “Just sit for a minute. Take a breath, okay?”