One Door away from Heaven [antikvár]

Chapter 1THE WORLD IS FÜLL of broken people. Splints, casts, miracle drugs, and time can't mend fractured hearts, wounded minds, torn spirits.Currently, sunshine was Micky Bellsong's medication of choice, and southern California in late August was an apothecary with a deep supply of this prescription.Tuesday afternoon, wearing a bikini and oiled for broil-ing, Mieky reclined in a lounge chair in her aunt Geneva's backyard. The nylon webbing was a nausea-inducing shade of green, and it sagged, too, and the aluminum joints creaked as though the lawn furniture were far older than Micky, who was only twenty-eight, but who sometimes feit ancient.Her aunt, from whom fate had stolen everything except a reliable sense of humor, referred to the yard as "the gar-den." That would be the rosebush.The property was wider than it was deep, to allow the füll length of the house trailer to face the street. Instead of a lawn with trees, a narrow covered patio shaded the front entrance. Here in back, a strip of grass extended from one side of the lot to the other, but it provided a scant twelve feet of turf between the door and the rear fence. The grass flourished because Geneva watered it regularly with a hose.The rosebush, however, responded perversely to tender care. In spite of ample sunshine, water, and plant food, in