Chapter 2

Sighing Emma pulled herself out of bed and into her chair. Wheeling herself into the bathroom she slid into her shower stall with practiced ease. Closing the door Emma started the shower and let the steaming hot water wash the remnants of her dream away.

After her shower Emma dressed in a light summer dress and wheeled herself into the kitchen to get herself some breakfast, she sighed heavily when she remembered she had been too tired after work last night to go shopping. Emma grimaced to herself, those horrible little carts the supermarket provided that attached to wheelchairs may be useful but to Emma it seemed like waving a flag and shouting out “Look at me, I’m a cripple!”

With a sense of resignation Emma wheeled herself out to her garage and up to her modified van. The Transit van had a lift at the back for Emma’s wheelchair and once she had been lifted up the ramp folded up as one of the back doors of the van. Emma rolled forward to the space where the driver’s seat would have been and locked her chair in place before putting on her seatbelt.

When the automatic garage door finished opening Emma easily drove the van towards town. It had taken Emma a while to adjust to driving with only hand controls but now it seemed almost like she had always driven that way.

Parking the van in the supermarket carpark Emma was careful to choose a space where nothing could block the rear of her van, she had made that mistake once before and had sat in her chair beside of the van for over an hour waiting with rising anger for the young man to return to his car. She could have gone in and asked them to call out over the tannoy system to get the car moved but her anger and stubborn pride wouldn’t allow her to show that sort of weakness.

As she turned her chair to get to the ramp Emma caught sight of the expensive kitchen equipment she had installed in the van during it’s conversion. On a whim she had the company that converted the van for her wheelchair turn the back of the van into a camper, all the fixtures were designed with her chair in mind. There were two fold down beds, one shorter one to save space, after all Emma didn’t need a full size bed these days. Emma had never used the van for camping, she had been so buried in her anger that there wasn’t room for a holiday. She was suddenly filled with the desire to get away, get away from work, from people who were tired of being sympathetic. Somewhere no one would know her, where she could maybe work out how the new Emma could find herself.

Acting on her impulse Emma flipped open her phone and dialled Jess’ number.

“Morning Jess, it’s Emma.”

“Oh, Hi Emma. You’re up early!” Jess’ voice was sleepy, Emma felt a twinge of guilt at waking her friend on her day off.