Anna woke with a start at 5:30 a.m. She had crawled into bed after midnight and was disoriented from lack of sleep. Suddenly the room lit up with a brilliant flash followed closely by the crack of thunder. Ah, she thought, the anticipated boomers arrived. More and more flashes, then a pop as the power went off, and on, again.
�Damn.� Her alarm was battery operated so she knew it would go off on schedule and she had shut the computers down the night before just in case. But, in all their years together, Mr. Lucky never learned to stop a blinking VCR, turn on the cable box power, or set clock on the microwave. He would call her tonight and ask her how, and TIVO needed to do its job. She got up and reset everything � then lay back down to watch the end of the light show. And dream a little.
When Anna was a small child she was terrified of thunder. One warm summer afternoon, during a thunderstorm, her father gathered her in his arms and took her outside. Together they played in the summer rain as he told her the story of thunder and lightening. And she was never afraid again. Anna doesn�t remember the event, but the story had become a family heirloom. Morgan never feared thunder � but she and Anna played outside in many a warm summer shower.
The alarm went off at 7:30 as expected, and Anna finished up, packed the car and drove to the airport without even stopping to check email. A text message arrived as she sat in the terminal.
�Have a nice time at Bobbi�s.� He remembered she was leaving.
The plane was on time to Tampa where Bobbi picked her up. The next five days would be nothing but eating, sleeping, reading, playing cards, swimming, movie watching and girl talk.
�I�ve got two packages for you,� said Bobbi casually as they drove home from the airport. �They arrived yesterday.�
And so they had. Mailed from Kansas on Friday, while Ben was on his trip.
Anna opened them as soon as they arrived. The first was a DVD. �The Horse Whisperer�. The second was a CD, the soundtrack from �The Horse Whisperer� he had burned for her. This is what everything was leading up to. "Soft Place to Fall" was on the sound track.
And when she checked email, she found:
Anna,
Have a great time at Bobbi's. Say hi for me. And by the way, I think you read way too much into the lyrics of �Soft Place to Fall�. The song is part of your birthday gift and was meant to pique your curiosity. Enjoy the rest of your gift with Bobbi. More waiting for you when you return to VA.
Benny
It takes a minute to like someone, an hour to love someone, but to forget someone takes a life time.
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