Neither my adult son nor I could have expected how that day would end.
It was warm and sunny. Clear. Dry. Lacking in any uncomfortable humor or humidity. More perfect than normal for a Mid-Atlantic June day. June 1, to be exact. We meandered along a short part of the trail along the C&D Canal, starting in Chesapeake City where we parked our car.
We watched a sailboat fight the current. It wasn’t winning, but instead was being driven in a direction it didn’t appear to want to go. We looked at each other with the knowledge that we were both glad to be standing firmly on solid ground. Safe.
The heat from the mid-day sun sent us on a search for shade and a drink. The colorful umbrellas at a Chesapeake City restaurant positioned on the canal drew our attention. We found a table under one of those umbrellas, stretching out our legs and relishing the cool liquid soothing the insides of our bodies.
Once home, the day’s tranquility dissipated. A friend was arriving soon to take us to our favorite pizza place and I had to change. I fell into my normal mode of panic, and rushed around the house. Galloped up the stairs and tore through the living room. Only, somehow, I hadn’t noticed that my son’s laptop was still connected, with the cord running across the entrance to the room where I was heading.
At that moment, I was a middle-aged woman feeling like the high school track team member I used to be. I attempted to jump the cord, and like the sailboat, was driven in a direction I didn’t want to go.
All it took was an instant.
With the cord wrapped around my left ankle, I began to hop forward in an effort to avoid falling. Instead, I landed so firmly on my right ankle that it broke. That instant is a blur in my memory. There was a deafening cracking sound. A sharp pain shot through my leg and the next thing I knew I was on the couch with my son assuring me that I had only sprained my ankle. A short time later, the emergency room doctor did not support that conclusion. Something called a ‘pedestal bone’ had broken. In an instant.
INSTANT NOODLES 