She walks with Mel another couple hundred yards to where the hobbit gate is hidden in the rhododendrons. “Here’s where I get off,” Rose tells Mel. “I’m getting no nearer your house than this. Be sure and set all the locks, and don’t answer the door unless you know who it is.”

“I won’t take candy from strangers, either,” Mel says. “I’ve got an idea. Can I have my phone?”

Rose has not let go of the tissue box. The cardboard is crushed, corners smashed, one seam bursting with white tissues. She gives it to Mel. Mel rips out the phone, hands Rose back the cardboard and paper, and then begins tapping the cell phone with her thumbs.

“It’s nearly dead,” she accuses.

“You act like it’s a kitten,” Rose grumbles.

“Will you be okay here alone for a while?” Mel asks.

“I was going to hide out in the ditch back there a ways until the coast was clear, then go the Motel 6 route,” Rose says. She can’t hide a shudder.

“I’ve got a better plan. Go inside the gate. Nobody can see you there, and you won’t get eaten by bugs and snakes. I’ll be back in a while.”

“Going to keep me in suspense?” Rose asks.

“I’ve got to see if the plan can work before I get your hopes up,” Mel replies. She dumps the bike, takes Rose’s arm, and escorts her into the shadows of the bushes. Rose winces as she reaches for the gate’s handle, the raw flesh on her wrist pulling, the blood oozing on the damaged skin.

“Are you hurt?” Mel asks.

The concern in her voice is a balm. “The only thing that really hurts is trying to avoid the pain,” Rose says. Inside the gate, she sinks down on the grass and leans back against the fence. Sitting is wonderful. “I’m going to breathe it in and embrace it.”

“Really?” Mel asks dubiously.

“Yup.”

“Does it work?”

“Every now and then.”

A moment’s hesitation; then Mel says, “All right. I won’t be long.” And she is gone, back onto the greenway, the gate closing quietly behind her.

Head back against the rough boards, Rose breathes in the pain, trying to embrace it. There is a lot to get her metaphysical arms around. Her hip feels as if she partially dislocated it when she fell in the foyer of the MCU during her mad dash to freedom. Her wrist stings and burns. Both elbows ache from her fall from the table in the activities room, then her dive to the sod when Mel came up on her.