Free The Fourteen Day Soul Detox by Rita Stradling Page A

video on the computer.
“Angel, quiet, okay? Or I’m turning the laptop off. Let’s
watch another competition, not the finals for a little while.”
I skipped to another video.
    Wandering into my living room, I took a
seat on my overstuffed couch. When I closed my eyes, vivid images ran
through my mind. First, I saw the mist parting around Sarah as she
ran away from me and the bus. Then Aiden’s braids bounced in
every direction as he held Sarah’s hand and jumped on the
trampoline. Whitney’s long black lashes came together and
separated as she glared down at my wedding ring. Cameron smiled over
his shoulder at me as he shook his hips. My sister’s red
fingernails made small circles at her temples. The pink blossoms blew
in all directions around my body. Chris’s eyes squinted with a
smile as he and Margret belted out my pop song. Mitch looked out of
the shop’s window as if he was perfectly content. The girl in
the road’s hands reached to stop my car. Sarah, smiling with
her little dimples showing when she said, ‘I like to be sad.’
    A knock sounded at my door and I got up
to answer. When I opened the door, Susan, Beza and Aiden stood
outside, smiling at me. “Happy birthday,” they said in
unison.
    “I need to change my whole life,”
I said.

Day
Zero: Four-thirty

    Beza and Susan shared a look.
    “Well, let’s get inside
then,” Beza said.
    I stepped back but Aiden ran up to hug
me. “Hey, Aunt Jamie. Where’s Sarah?” he said.
    “Hey cutie, she’s in the
kitchen,” I said, moving aside so he could run past me.
    As we stepped back into my living room,
Beza asked, “Have you packed up Sarah yet?”
    “I’m sorry,” I said.
    Susan stepped in front of me, so close
her pregnant belly almost touched me. “Okay, this is how this
is going to go.” She paused to grab up her long blonde hair,
tying it into a knot on the top of her head. “Bee is going to
take the kids to have a sleep over at our place. I am going to stay
here with you, and we’re going to figure out your life.”
    “No, we don’t have to
tonight,” I said.
    “Yes we do,” Susan said.
    I turned to Beza. “I feel bad,
our plans—”
    “Are not as important as this,
Jamie,” Beza said. “Anyway, it will be nice to have some
special time with Sarah.”
    “Wow, you guys are so intense
about this,” I said.
    “We’ve just been waiting
for you to wake up for a while, and we’re ready,” Susan
put an arm on my shoulder. Then she lifted one of her legs backward
and grabbed her ankle with her hand.
    “Susan, I thought you were going
to hug me, but you’re just using me as a stretching pole?”
I rolled my eyes.
    “I am f-u-c-k-i-n-g
uncomfortable,” she said.
    “That spelling words out thing
isn’t going to work for much longer,” Beza said, pointing
at Susan and pursing her lips. “I’m going to go pack a
bag for Sarah.” She turned, heading to Sarah’s room.
    “Stay right there,” Susan
said as she walked over to my other side, stretching her opposite
leg.
    “You know I do have walls and
furniture you could do that on.”
    “You’re just the right
height. Don’t you dare move,” she said. “So, it
sounds like your day fucking sucked.”
    “I heard that!” Beza yelled
from Sarah’s room.
    “Crap,” Susan mumbled under
her breath.
    “I’m not sure, in a way it
was horrible, but not really. Sometimes, I think that life is only a
series of moments. And today, moments were just shooting at me left
and right. It was like I didn’t have a single thing really
happen for a year, then just today, a million things happened. Except
for almost hitting that girl, they weren’t even that big
either, just there.”
    “Maybe you were walking around
asleep for the past year, and some… power determined that you
were ready to wake up,” she said.
    “If life is a series of moments,
and you have a year without any real moments, I guess you wouldn’t
have really lived that year. And then maybe you could live a