Take Care, Sara

population being so high might have something to do with the two prisons in the city. She supposed in that regard Waupun did have one up on Boscobel, though it wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
    Her destination had been random. She’d gotten a map of Wisconsin, closed her eyes, and put her finger on a city. Her finger had actually landed on Beaver Dam; a trendier city about half an hour from Waupun, but as her parents had an old friend who owned a motel in Waupun, she’d contacted Dana Newman for an extended-stay room instead of sticking with Beaver Dam. It was more of an inn than a motel; too nice to be reduced to the title of motel. Sara wasn’t really sure how Dana knew her parents; only that she’d seen her at occasional birthday parties and get-togethers through the years. She was charging her next to nothing because, as Dana had said, she’d always liked Sara and she was sorry she’d gotten so much rotten luck in her life.
    Dana also didn’t need the money; she was extremely wealthy from being the wife and divorcee of rich men four times over. Short, platinum blond, with leathery brown skin, Dana liked to be stylish, even when the look she was going for was much too young for her sixty-ish body and face and she should probably lay off the tanning bed. Sara had been there over two weeks and every day at eight in the morning Dana brought over a cup of coffee and a doughnut because Sara was too thin and no boy wanted to lay down with bones. Her words. She wore tight capris in black and white and alternating flashy tops with headache-inducing designs and wobbled in six-inch heels no woman had any right wearing, least of all an elderly one.
    The room was the size of a small apartment and located on the second floor of the motel, complete with a kitchenette with fun-sized appliances and furniture. The walls were creamy white with pale pink, white, and celery green accents for furniture and fabric. It was uncluttered with a bed, dresser, a pale green chaise lounge with a neoclassic design, and a flat-screen television mounted on the wall. A small closet housed her clothes. The bathroom had a garden tub with a skylight above it. Sara loved it. If she had to pick a room to live in, this would be it. You are living in it, at least temporarily.
    A pamphlet in Sara’s motel room boasted: “Waupun comes from the Indian name of "Waubun" which means "dawn of day." In fact, Waupun was originally supposed to be named "Waubun" but the State of Wisconsin made a spelling error, and Waupun never bothered to change it.” She snorted when she read that.
    Sara lay on the comfortable full-sized bed with the pink paisley comforter, staring at the white ceiling fan and light. Where did she belong? Not in this foreign city she’d escaped to, not in the past or in the house they’d bought together. Maybe Sara didn’t belong any where , but with someone . She’d come to Waupun to find herself and instead she was finding Lincoln.
    His eyes glared at her in their powerful way from the recesses of her mind; she felt his arms around her in the warmth of the sun; she longed to hear his deep voice that spoke so passionately and kissed just as passionately. You’re stupid, Sara, for leaving. She tried to make herself feel better by telling herself she wouldn’t have realized that if she hadn’t gone. It was little consolation. The point was she was wasting time she could be spending with Lincoln; the man who’d awoken the fire inside her she’d thought forever snuffed out. And still, she couldn’t return, not yet.
    She hadn’t told him where she was going not because she was afraid he’d come after her, but because if she had she’d be more likely to return before she was ready to, which really didn’t make sense, but was true all the same. He didn’t know she was only about three hours away, so it was as though she didn’t know how close she was to him either.
    It was as she looked so long at the light bulb she began to see spots that Sara finally accepted it. Somehow the light made her see all she hadn’t wanted to. It was a literal epiphany. She’d been in limbo, unable to move on, unable to go back, while Cole had laid there, some part of him unable to let go as well. Sara would have kept waiting. He’d known that too. That was why he’d written that paper and that was why he’d given them a year to find a way back to each other.
    She had pushed it past a year in hopes of his recovery, but it hadn’t mattered;