Available Darkness Season 2

excuses. Her rather substantial check was in exchange for a promise that she would deliver flowers beautiful enough to make Becca Graham weep from memory when telling her granddaughter about the best day of her life four decades later.
    The job could make or break Hannah’s Bucket Boutique.
    Her dashboard clock read 11:51 a.m., and 20 minutes away.
    Hannah’s phone buzzed with a text — Jenny her assistant calling from the church, where she was waiting with the wedding coordinator Cori Truman who had strongly advised Mrs. Graham to use a different florist. Anyone, other than Hannah, would do, according to Cori.
    “WHERE ARE YOU?”
    Hannah reached down and texted back, “15 minutes out, I hope. Be there soon. Sorry!”
    Hannah stared out the window through the ragged smears left behind by her fraying wipers, cursing herself for forgetting to change the blades, again, after having her oil changed at Bud’s the week before.
    Aren’t they supposed to check stuff like that?
    She thought they were, but perhaps it was one of those things you were supposed to specify, no matter how obvious you figured it was. Hannah imagined calling the garage, complaining, and being told, “Sorry, ma’am, we saw that your wipers were hanging by strips like noodles, but if you didn’t ask, we didn’t fix!”
    Because of her rotted wipers, Hannah was forced to drive even slower than the already slower-than-molasses traffic, and focus on the blurring lights ahead as she navigated the street.
    The next light went yellow, and the car ahead of her stopped short, even though they both had plenty of time to make it. She hit the brakes and shouted, “Come on!” as she slapped her open palms hard on the steering wheel.
    Hannah tried telling herself to relax.
    She had time. Weddings were planned with plenty of cushions in case someone was running late, like the cakes she always had to wait on. Hannah was well within her cushion. The worst that would happen was that an impatient photographer couldn’t start his battery of photos at the precise moment he wanted to. However, there was no doubt that Cori would overplay her tardiness to Mrs. Graham to poison Judy’s opinion of Hannah and her shop.
    The light went green, and traffic started to crawl. Rain fell harder, as if refusing to aid Hannah, despite her pleas.
    Relax. Just focus on the road, think of Greg and you’ll be there before you know it.
    Greg was Hannah’s longtime boyfriend. Their trip to Arbor Falls, California for a long overdue vacation — a week at a cabin passed down to Greg from his parents — was the coming Tuesday, and Hannah couldn’t wait. Though she and Greg had been dating for two years, this was their first real romantic trip. Time had never allowed such an indulgence. Greg was an analyst, and Hannah had her shop. Between them, available minutes were few. Six months earlier, they carved a date in stone marking their calendar with a promised week off. They owed it to themselves, and each other. Now, with the trip two days away, Hannah started thinking of the many things she needed to do before then, and hoping her shop would be OK for a week without her.
    Anxiety found its familiar home inside her, nesting deeper into her veins as she hit her millionth red light.
    You were supposed to think about the trip to calm down, not worry more!
    Hannah closed her eyes, listening to her thumping wipers as rain drummed on metal. She hoped the sound would soothe her, even if traffic couldn’t.
    Everything will be OK.
    The wedding will go off without a hitch.
    Jenny will handle the shop just fine.
    We’ll leave with everything we need.
    Everything will be fine.
    A horn blurted behind her. The light was green, and cars were already moving through the intersection. “Sorry,” she mouthed, waving to the driver behind her, though they couldn’t hear her words or read her lips.
    Hannah stepped on the gas, crossed the light, and flew onto the on ramp, relieved to see the highway traffic buzzing at a reasonable clip. She sped into a two-lane change, hoping to recover lost time. She looked in her mirror, then over her shoulder, and crossed another pair of lanes, nudging the Element 10 miles over the limit, the fastest she’d let herself go, especially in the rain, and within what she believed would be an acceptable speed to still slip from a ticket with a smile if needed. She kept her eyes on the road, and the rearview, hoping she wouldn’t see flashing lights behind