When I woke, it was nearly sundown. “Where are we?” I asked Natalie hoarsely as I looked out my window. I didn’t recognize any landmarks along the darkening rural road.
“Almost to Cordele,” she replied, glancing in my direction. “You’ve been conked out for a couple hours. Are you feeling any better?”
I took a few seconds to assess the parts of my body I could feel before I answered her. “Yeah, I am.” I felt groggy from sleeping, but the headache I’d had back in Atlanta was gone. I couldn’t wait to get to our hotel, so I could change clothes and freshen up before we headed to her parents’ house for dinner. Despite Natalie’s best efforts to clean my t-shirt and sweatpants, I could still smell the faint stench of stale vomit clinging to the fabric.
Rather than drive an extra thirty miles to the city of Albany this time, we’d decided to reserve a hotel room in a smaller city called Cordele, which was on the way to Natalie’s even smaller hometown of Sylvester. The hotel we’d picked had looked promising online. Conveniently located right off the interstate, it appeared to have been built within the last decade, had earned mostly positive reviews, and claimed to have an accessible room with a roll-in shower available. In person, it looked like any other three-star chain hotel, built like a large box of bricks and painted in nondescript shades of beige.
“Thank the Lord we’re here,” Natalie sighed as we pulled into the parking lot. “I’ve gotta pee! Been holding it for the last half hour.”
I laughed. “I can wait in the car if you wanna run in and use the bathroom before we unload everything.”
“Nah, that’s okay. I can make it another ten minutes,” she replied, parking in a handicapped space up front. She hung my placard from her rearview mirror, then hurried around to the passenger side to put the big wheels back on my chair and help me transfer to it.
I waited on the sidewalk while she unloaded our luggage from the trunk, wishing, as usual, that I could do more to help her. “I’ll get the door,” I offered lamely, wheeling ahead to push the large button on the wall beside the glass front doors, which opened automatically and stayed open for us as we passed through them.
Inside, the lobby was empty, quiet except for a flatscreen TV on one wall, which was tuned to ABC’s annual broadcast of The Ten Commandments. Rolling up to the deserted front desk, I reached up to hit the silver call bell that sat on the corner. A few seconds later, a young man walked through a door behind the desk.
“Oh, hi there!” he said. “Y’all checkin’ in?”
“Yes, under the name Richardson.”
The man typed something into his computer. “Okay, I see that we have you down for a two-night stay in one of our mobility accessible rooms with a king bed?”
“And a roll-in shower, right?” I replied.
“Um, let me see…” He scanned the computer screen. “So, it looks like this room has an accessible tub.”
I shook my head. “That’s not gonna work for me. I reserved a room with a roll-in shower, and when I called to confirm, I was told it would have one.”
“Oh, yes, I see that note here,” the front desk agent said, finally looking up from his screen. “I’m sorry, sir, but we only have two rooms with roll-in showers, and both are already filled for tonight.”
“How can that be when we reserved one of them weeks ago?” I tried to keep my voice calm, but I could feel my pulse pounding faster, my face heating up as a flood of red hot blood rushed to my head.
“It looks like the guests in one of those rooms decided to extend their stay,” said the man, his fingers clacking rapidly across the keyboard, “and the guests assigned to the other room arrived before you did.”
“So you just gave away our room?” I asked incredulously, my voice rising.
“Well, not me personally, sir,” the man replied quickly. “Most likely someone on the early shift.”
It was at this point that Natalie stepped in. “I’m sorry, but that’s unacceptable,” she said. “My boyfriend needs a room with a roll-in shower, like the one he reserved. If you can’t accommodate us here, we expect you to find us a comparable room at a different hotel.”
The front desk agent hesitated for only a second before he nodded. “Let me see what I can do.”
As he bent back over his keyboard and started typing again, I gave Natalie a sidelong glance. Go babe, I thought, flashing her a grateful smile. She grinned back briefly, but as we waited, she began to fidget, shifting her weight impatiently from one foot to the other. “If you need to use the bathroom that bad, just go,” I finally muttered out of the side of my mouth. “I’ll wait here.”
She shook her head. “No. I can hold it.”
It’s a good thing one of us can, I thought ruefully.
After a few minutes, the desk agent looked up apologetically and said, “I’m sorry, but I haven’t had any luck finding y’all a room with a roll-in shower. I’ve already checked all of our partner hotels and other three-star hotels in the area, and none of them seem to have one available.”
“Not a single one?” Natalie said skeptically. “I find that hard to believe.” Fishing her phone out of her purse, she started searching for hotel rooms herself, her thumbs flying across the screen.
“With all due respect, ma’am, we’re halfway through a holiday weekend. Most hotels are going to be fully booked,” the man said. “If you decide you do want to stay with us, I can offer you a twenty-percent discount on the room with the accessible tub. Or, if you’d like to try your luck somewhere else, I can cancel your reservation and give you a full refund.”
Natalie and I looked at each other. Seeing the desperation in her eyes, I made a snap decision. “We’ll take the room,” I replied grudgingly. “But I want to talk to your manager about this before we leave on Monday.”
“Of course, sir,” said the desk agent with a nod. “I’ll let her know and have her reach out to you. Again, I apologize for the inconvenience.”
When we finished checking in, he handed Natalie a pair of key cards and told us where to find the elevator, which would take us up to our second-floor room. “I can’t believe you didn’t play your Backstreet Boy card,” Natalie muttered as she dragged our luggage down the hall.
“What good would that have done?” I asked as I pushed myself alongside her, my commode case balanced across my knees. “If they don’t have a room, they don’t have a room. My celebrity status won’t change that any more than my disability did.”
“The thing is, they do have a room,” she replied huffily. “They just let someone else have it for another night, even though we’d already reserved it. That’s not right.” Upon reaching our room, she held her key card in front of the sensor outside the door until it unlocked with a click. “I’ve worked in hospitality; we never would have done that. Though, to be fair, we had fewer rooms to keep track of in the bed and breakfast where I worked – and none of them had roll-in showers,” she added as she opened the door and went inside, holding the door open so I could wheel myself in after her.
I was relieved to find that the room was mostly wheelchair-accessible, with wide doorways, a bed that was lower to the floor, and a large bathroom. The only problematic part was the tub. With its handheld showerhead, grab bars, and transfer bench, it would have been perfectly accessible to most people, including paraplegics with fully-functioning hands and more trunk control than I had, but I knew it would be difficult for me to use.
“Don’t worry, babe. We’ll figure it out,” Natalie assured me as she squeezed past, already pulling down her pants. “Oh my goodness, I’ve gotta pee so bad!”
“I’ll give you some privacy,” I said, chuckling as I backed out of the bathroom.
“I don’t even care at this point!” she called back as I closed the door. While she relieved herself, I took off my vomit-stained t-shirt and tossed it onto the floor. I was fumbling with my suitcase when she came back out. “Want some help?” she offered, hoisting the heavy suitcase onto the luggage rack for me.
“Thanks, but I think I can get it from here.” Threading my thumb through the ring Dawn had attached to one of the zippers, I tugged it slowly around the outside of the suitcase until it was fully unzipped. Then I lifted the lid, leaning it against the wall, and carefully dug through its contents to find myself some clean clothes.
Natalie waited patiently while I unfolded one of my Wildcats sweatshirts and worked it over my head. Once I had it on, she helped me transfer to the bed to take off my sweatpants and put on a new pair. “There… I bet that feels better,” she said, giving me an affectionate pat before she pulled me back up into a sitting position.
I nodded, but as I watched her place my slide board between the bed and my wheelchair, I found myself wishing I could have just left my clothes off, laid back down, and let myself drift off to sleep again. After a long day of traveling, I was exhausted. If I hadn’t been trying to please her parents, I would have been tempted to tell Natalie to just leave me there while she went to their house without me. But I said nothing, knowing it was more important for me to make a good impression on them that weekend.
“Are you ready now?” she asked once she’d helped me back into my chair. “Or do you need to use the bathroom before we go?”
“That would probably be smart,” I replied, remembering her parents’ small bathroom and slippery bar of soap. If I emptied my bladder now and didn’t drink too much with dinner, I could survive the evening without having to do it again until we got back to the hotel. “I’ll try to be quick,” I promised as I wheeled myself toward the bathroom.
“Take your time,” she said with a tight-lipped smile, but I could tell by the way she glanced at the clock that she was eager to get back on the road. Knowing her parents, they would be waiting for us with dinner already on the table.
When I finished doing my business, we went back downstairs and out the front door. It was completely dark by then. “Did you text your folks to let them know when we’ll be there?” I asked Natalie as she buckled me into her passenger seat.
“Yeah, I did while you were in the bathroom. Have you heard from your father-in-law?”
I nodded. “He texted earlier to let me know he and Mason made it to Kansas City. But maybe I’d better give him a call, so I can talk to Mase before bedtime. Do you mind?”
“Not at all.” Natalie handed me my phone before she closed the car door. While she drove us to her family’s farm, I FaceTimed with John and Mason, who told me all about their two plane rides and listened eagerly as I told them about mine.
When we turned into the Crawfords’ long, gravel driveway, I said, “Sorry, buddy, but I’ve gotta go now. We’re pulling up to Natalie’s parents’ house. Besides, you’d better get to bed before the Easter Bunny comes.”
Watching Mason’s face crack a smile, I felt a pang of sorrow. Usually, Dawn and I spent the night before Easter playing Easter Bunny, putting together Mason’s basket and hiding plastic eggs around the house for him to find the following morning. I wondered if she was missing the tradition, too. I wanted to text her, but there wasn’t time. I finished saying goodnight as Natalie parked her car in front of the house.
Her parents had left the porch light on for us, and as Natalie climbed out of the car, closing the door behind her, I saw the curtains in the picture window twitch as someone inside peeked out. Moments later, her dad appeared on the porch, just as he had back in December.
“Well, there you are!” I heard him holler. “Your momma and I were beginning to think you weren’t gonna make it!”
“Sorry, Daddy,” Natalie apologized as she opened the back door to take out my wheelchair. “We got held up a bit back at the hotel.”
“That’s all right, sweet pea. I’m just giving you a hard time,” Bill replied, walking down the plywood ramp he’d placed over the steps. “Y’all need a hand?”
Natalie had already pulled my chair out of the back seat. “Nah, I’ve got this.” Glancing into my side mirror, I watched her pop one of the big wheels back onto the frame with practiced hands. “Sorry we’re late,” she said, flipping the chair over so she could put on the other wheel. “The hotel gave away the room we’d reserved with a roll-in shower and put us in one with a tub instead.”
“What?!” Her father frowned. “If they’d pulled that kinda crap on me, I would’ve canceled my reservation and gone someplace else.”
“Believe me, we wanted to… but, with it being a holiday weekend, there was nowhere else to go. Most hotels only have one or two rooms with roll-in showers in the first place, so trying to book one at the last minute is almost impossible,” Natalie explained as she opened the passenger door and positioned my chair next to it.
“Then you should’ve come straight here,” said Bill, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “Your momma’s still a little sore about you not staying with us.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint, but you don’t have a roll-in shower here either – or a bedroom that Kevin can reach.” Natalie didn’t sound too apologetic. I could tell by her tone that she was getting annoyed – or maybe she was just tired. It had been a long day for both of us, and transferring me to and from my chair took a lot out of her, too.
“No, but we do have a barn. We could hose him off there if he starts to smell like the cattle,” her dad joked – at least, I thought he was joking. As usual, it was hard to tell with him.
As Natalie pulled my slide board out of the back seat, I cleared my throat. “Hey, Bill. Good to see you again,” I called out through the open car door, wanting him to know I’d heard every word of what he’d said.
“You as well,” her father replied, finally acknowledging me directly for the first time since we’d pulled into the driveway. He flashed me a brief smile that failed to meet his eyes before turning his attention back to his daughter. “You sure you don’t want some help with that?” he asked as he watched her struggle to wedge my slide board beneath me.
“No, Dad. No offense, but you’d just be in the way.” Straightening up, Natalie walked around my wheelchair and reached over the back of it. “We know what we’re doing. Ready, babe?” As she placed her hands on my waist, I nodded and leaned forward, planting my left hand on the car seat and my right on the door. “One… two… three.” On the count of three, I pushed off as hard as I could while she lifted and pulled, helping guide my hips across the board and onto my seat cushion.
Bill stood back out of the way, watching with a slight frown on his face while Natalie positioned me in my wheelchair, pulling me upright by the shoulders, pushing my hips back to straighten my posture, and putting my feet on the footplates. By the time she finished fastening the straps that held the paralyzed parts of my body in place, there were beads of sweat glistening on her forehead. I could hear her breathing hard behind me as she pushed me up the plywood ramp, which was much too steep for me to manage on my own. Bill brought up the rear, following us to the front door, where his wife, Bev, was waiting.
“Come on in, come on in!” she called, holding the door open for us. “Oh, I’m so happy you’re here!” Once inside, she hugged her daughter, then me. “So lovely to see you again, Kevin! I’m glad you could join us for Easter.”
“Thanks for having me,” I said, smiling up at her.
“It’s our pleasure! I hope you brought your appetite because dinner’s ready!”
When we went into the dining room, I was secretly relieved to see that the table had been set for four, which meant that Natalie’s sister Mindy and her family wouldn’t be joining us that night. I would have a better chance of winning over her father without Mindy making snide remarks about me and my money.
Bev had fixed chicken-fried steak for dinner, served with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and buttermilk biscuits. Natalie put my plate guard on my plate, then loaded it with a little of everything as the dishes were passed around the table. “Do you want me to cut your meat for you?” she whispered as I took my utensils out of my bag. I nodded, knowing I would probably have difficulty cutting the breaded steak by myself without getting gravy everywhere.
Bill watched in silence as Natalie sliced my steak into bite-sized pieces. Next to him, Bev cleared her throat. “So, Kevin, I hear you got to fly a plane today,” she said eagerly. “Tell us all about it!”
So I started talking about my flight with Roger, telling them every detail except for my bout of airsickness, which I decided to leave out of the dinner conversation.
“That sounds incredible!” Bev said when I was done. “So glad he was able to accommodate you.”
“Me too. It was a pretty cool experience,” I agreed, picking up my fork as Natalie put my plate down in front of me. I stabbed a piece of steak that was smothered with thick, white gravy and raised it to my lips. That first bite tasted like Southern-fried heaven. The breading on the outside was well-seasoned and crispy, while the cut of meat inside was so tender and juicy, it seemed to melt in my mouth. “Mmm,” I said as I swallowed. “Bev, this steak is amazing!”
“Why, thank you!” she replied, beaming at me. “The coating is my dear sweet momma’s recipe, and the beef came from our own stock – right, honey?”
“Mm-hmm.” Bill nodded, his mouth full of mashed potato.
The potatoes, green beans, and biscuits were all just as delicious. I ate more than I usually did, managing to almost clean my plate.
“Well, Kevin, why don’t we crack open a cold one and get out of the way while the women clean up?” Bill suggested after dinner, as Natalie helped her mother clear the table.
“Sure, sounds good,” I agreed, my pulse quickening as I realized this would be the perfect opportunity to talk to him privately without making it obvious. “You know, it’s such a nice night… Maybe we could go outside and sit on the front porch for a bit?”
“Good idea,” said Bill with a nod. “You go on ahead. I’ll grab us a couple beers from the fridge and meet you out front.”
I wheeled myself out of the dining room and made my way to the front door, which was as far I got. I was still fumbling with the old-fashioned doorknob, trying to generate enough force to turn it and pull the heavy door open at the same time, when Bill walked up behind me.
“Whoops, sorry,” he said as I backed up to let him go ahead of me. “This door can get a little sticky sometimes. Here you go.” He opened it one-handed without any trouble and stepped out onto the front porch, holding the glass storm door for me as I pushed myself over the low threshold.
The temperature had dropped a few degrees since sundown, but it was still in the upper sixties, warm enough for me to sit outside without a jacket. Rolling across the wooden porch, I parked my chair next to a pair of painted rockers. Bill sat down in the one closest to me and dragged a small side table over to place between us. He put down the two cans of Busch Light he’d been carrying, popped open the tabs on both, and handed me one.
“Thanks, Bill.” Clutching the can, I took a sip of cold beer and tried to collect my thoughts for the conversation I intended to have with him. I knew we wouldn’t have much time to talk without Natalie around, so it was best not to beat around the bush for too long. I decided to be direct. Clearing my throat, I began by saying, “I really appreciate you and your wife welcoming me here for another holiday. It’s been nice getting to know you both better.”
“Likewise,” said Bill, taking a leisurely swig from his can. “I appreciate you letting Natalie celebrate at home with her family.”
“Of course,” I said, but I couldn’t help wondering what he meant by that. Did he blame me for the fact that Natalie was spending less time in Georgia these days and more time in Kentucky or California with me? Deciding not to dwell on his comment, I took a deep breath and continued, “I hope you know how much I love your daughter, sir. I’d like to spend many more holidays here… and hopefully become a part of your family someday.”
Bill looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“If you think it means I’m planning to propose to Natalie, then the answer is yes. But I won’t do it without your blessing.”
Her father stroked his chin, studying me in silence for a few seconds. Then he said, “Don’t you think you might be moving a little too fast? I mean, y’all haven’t even been dating for a full year yet, have you?”
“Almost. Our one-year anniversary is in two weeks.”
“Hm… well, I still think it’s too soon for her to be moving in with you, let alone marrying you – which, back in my day, we did the other way around. Beverly and I dated for four years before we got engaged. She lived with her momma and daddy right up until our wedding day.”
“But you and Bev were high school sweethearts, weren’t you?” When he nodded, I went on, “With all due respect, sir, Natalie’s not some teenager who’s never left home before. She’s a thirty-one-year-old woman who’s been traveling the world and living on her own for over ten years now. And I’m a forty-one-year-old man who’s already been married once before. My first wife and I dated on and off for almost eight years before I finally proposed to her, and when she died, I only wished I’d done it sooner. Life’s too short to wait.”
“Life is short,” Bill agreed, “and that’s another one of my concerns. You’re a decade older than my daughter. At forty-one, you’re already a middle-aged man. And, no offense, but what’s the life expectancy for someone with your condition?”
I bristled but didn’t answer, not wanting to admit that I’d had the same worries. Between my disability and my own dad’s untimely death, the deck was stacked against me.
In my silence, Bill continued, “Natalie’s still a young woman. I don’t want to see her become a young widow. She deserves to have a husband she can grow old with. A husband who can keep up with her. A husband who can take care of her.”
“Natalie doesn’t need taking care of,” I argued. “And that’s a credit to you and Bev. You didn’t raise her to be some helpless 1950s housewife. She’s a modern, independent woman who can take care of herself.”
“That’s true,” Bill admitted, “but if she married you, she wouldn’t just be taking care of herself anymore. She’d be taking care of you, too. She’s told us some of what that entails, and, quite frankly, it sounds like a lot to me, even if she insists it isn’t. And if she were to take on the added responsibilities of caring for a house, a yard, and a family – responsibilities she’s never had before – it could easily become too much for one person to manage.”
I opened my mouth to respond, wanting to say something to defend myself, but closed it again as Bill continued:
“A marriage should be a partnership. A division of labor between husband and wife, with both partners pitching in to do their fair share of the duties. In our household, I’m responsible for the outside chores – farming, yardwork, caring for the animals. Bev takes care of the inside chores, like cooking, cleaning, and laundry. If you and Natalie got married, what would you contribute?”
“I do what I can around the house,” I told him. “I help with the cooking and cleaning, and I take care of my son. And I have no problem hiring people to do the things I physically can’t, like heavier housework and lawn care. I had a cleaning lady and a yard guy before I got hurt because being gone so much for work made it hard for me to keep up with the house, even when I was able-bodied. I may not be able to do as much as I used to, but I still make good money, enough to ensure that Natalie will always have the help she needs. If I can’t pull my own weight, I’ll pay someone to pick up the slack.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about your live-in help.” He gave me a disapproving look. “How do you think my daughter likes having another woman in the house all the time? A woman who touches her boyfriend’s naked body whenever she’s away for work?”
I felt my face flush. “There’s nothing sexual about what Dawn does for me, if that’s what you’re implying,” I said, frowning back at him. “Yes, she does help me with some of my personal care, including showering and dressing, but it’s strictly professional. Natalie knows that. She doesn’t mind.”
But, deep down, I was beginning to worry that wasn’t the case. How long ago had Natalie talked to her dad about Dawn? I wondered. Was it early on in our relationship, when she was still uncomfortable with the fact that I had a female full-time caregiver, or more recently than that? I thought she had moved past that, but maybe she had only pretended to accept Dawn’s place in my life to keep the peace, acting like she was fine with it when she was in my presence while telling her parents an entirely different story behind my back.
Natalie wouldn’t lie to me like that, I told myself. If something was bothering her, she would talk to me about it.
“You sure about that?” Bill asked, arching his eyebrows at me again. “Because, if it were me, I would have a real hard time letting another man come into my home and touch my wife’s body like that.”
“Then you’d better hope you and Bev never need home healthcare as you get older,” I retorted, growing annoyed with his condescending attitude. “I never thought I would need that kind of help at my age, but shit happens, you know?”
“Watch your mouth,” Bill snapped, his brows furrowing as he fixed me with a hardened stare. “I won’t have you talk that way to me in my own home.”
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, my cheeks burning. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Bill took a long swig of his beer. After swallowing, he said, “You want my permission to propose to Natalie? Well, I’m sorry, too, Kevin, but I can’t give it. You seem like a decent person, but you’re not the right person to marry my daughter. And before you go thinking I’m prejudiced, it’s not just because of your disability.”
Bullshit, I thought as bitter tears pressed against my eyeballs.
“It’s the age difference, too, and everything else we talked about. Natalie may be a grown woman, but she’ll always be my little girl. I want the very best for her. When the time comes, I wanna know I’m giving my princess away to a godly man who I can count on to take care of her, protect her, provide for her, and treat her like a queen for the rest of her life.”
“And what makes you think I can’t do that?” I asked desperately, my voice catching in my throat. “I’ve got enough money to guarantee that my family can continue to live comfortably long after I’m gone. Natalie will want for nothing with me.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about your net worth, Kevin. But you can’t solve every problem in a marriage by throwing money at it to make it go away. Sure, you may be able to placate her with expensive gifts, like fancy purses and luxury vacations, but we both know money can’t buy happiness. There are more important things in life, like family and faith.”
So now I’m not faithful enough for you either? I wanted to reply, but all I could bring myself to say was, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Bill nodded. “Me too.”
An awkward silence fell between us.
As I sat there in the dark, hoping he didn’t notice me trying to discreetly wipe away the tears trickling slowly down my cheeks, Bill abruptly stood up. “I’m gonna head in now and hit the john. That’ll give you some time to pull yourself together before you go back inside,” he said. “I’ll leave the front door open for you. Ring the bell if you need help getting in.” Then he walked away, leaving me alone on the porch.
Great, I thought, furiously rubbing my eyes with my fists. Now I look like an even weaker, more pathetic man than he already saw me as. I knew I would never be good enough for Natalie in her father’s eyes. He’d made that pretty clear to me.
So now what?
I was still contemplating the answer to that question when I heard the storm door creak open, and Natalie came out onto the porch. “Hey, babe! What are you doing out here all by yourself?” she asked, looking around in surprise.
“Oh… your dad had to use the bathroom,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady so she wouldn’t suspect something was wrong. “I’ve just been enjoying the peace and quiet. It’s a beautiful night.”
“Well, I hope you saved some room for dessert! Momma made a peanut butter pie. She’s ready to serve it if you wanna come back in now.”
I blinked at her blearily, my head buzzing. The last thing I felt like doing was eating. Even if I wasn’t still stuffed from dinner, my conversation with Bill would have been enough to ruin my appetite. “That sounds delicious, but I dunno if I can eat another bite.”
“Oh, c’mon, you’ve gotta try it!” Natalie coaxed, taking my hand. “Just a taste!” She tugged on my arm, gently pulling me toward her. Thankfully, my wheels were unlocked, and my seatbelt was fastened; otherwise, I probably would have flopped right out of my chair and faceplanted onto the front porch.
“If you insist,” I said, slipping my hand out of hers.
She frowned, giving me a look of concern. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah… I’m fine,” I lied, rolling past her. She hurried after me to hold the storm door for me as I pushed myself inside.
We returned to the dining room, where we were joined by Natalie’s parents. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Bill. I barely said another word to him all night, focusing my attention on Natalie and her mother instead. Bev, at least, seemed to like me. If I could manage to convince her that I was worthy of marrying her daughter, maybe she could change her husband’s mind.
“Bev, this dessert is divine,” I told her after tasting a bite of her peanut butter pie. “Does it have your homemade peanut butter in it?”
Bev beamed. “Thank you, dear. And, yes, it does! Why buy peanut butter from the store when we can make it ourselves right here?”
“I thought so,” I said, smiling back at her. “No wonder it’s so good.”
She reached across the table to pat my hand. “Remind me to send a couple of jars home with you and Natalie when you leave.”
“That’d be great. Thanks!” I wasn’t just trying to butter her up; the pie really was delicious. But it was also rich – too rich for a guy with a neurogenic bowel who had already eaten two big meals that day.
Three bites in, my stomach began to gurgle. I couldn’t feel it, but I could hear it. I hoped the others couldn’t hear it, too, although the glance Natalie gave me suggested she could. “You sure you’re okay?” she asked in a hushed tone. “Your face is sweating.”
So it was. Suddenly, I felt like my face was on fire again – not from embarrassment this time, but from the early stages of autonomic dysreflexia. At the same time, I realized that the faint buzzing inside my head had intensified into a painful, pulsing, pounding sensation – the kind of headache that wasn’t just the result of my racing thoughts, as I had originally written it off as, but, rather, a telltale symptom of my rapidly rising blood pressure. That was when I knew I wasn’t okay. With a shake of my head, I said, “I think I need to use the bathroom. Excuse me.”
Even as I wheeled myself out of the dining room and down the hall to the tiny bathroom, I knew I probably didn’t need to empty my bladder yet. I’d only drunk one glass of water with dinner, plus half a beer on the front porch. Still, I went through the process of cathing myself, just in case. As I suspected, I was only able to drain a small amount of urine, which did nothing to relieve my raging headache or hot flashes. Sweat dripped down the sides of my face as I clumsily folded the contents of the catheter kit so it would fit in the small wastebasket that sat in one corner of the room. I usually tried to be discreet when disposing of my kits anywhere outside of my own home, wrapping them in toilet paper or tissues to disguise the packaging, but, at that point, I couldn’t have cared less if Natalie’s parents noticed it.
I was in the middle of adjusting myself, making sure everything had been put back in its proper place inside my sweatpants, when I heard a knock at the bathroom door. “Kevin?” Natalie’s voice called softly. “Are you okay?”
I only hesitated for a second or two before responding, “Not really.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah.”
With a click and a creak, the door opened, and Natalie slipped inside, quickly closing the door again behind her. She took one look at my flushed, sweaty face and reached for a folded hand towel from a basket on a shelf above the toilet. “What’s wrong?” she asked as she wiped the sweat from my brow.
“I dunno for sure, but from the sounds my stomach’s been making, I’m thinking it’s a digestive issue,” I said, resting one hand on my belly, which looked even more distended than it usually did. “I must have overindulged today. It might just be gas, but… as I learned a long time ago: Never trust a fart.”
Natalie bit down on her bottom lip, trying not to laugh. “Oh, babe,” she said sympathetically. “My parents probably have Pepto and Tums if you wanna take something. Or… do you wanna try transferring onto the toilet here?”
“How? There’s no room,” I replied, looking around the tiny bathroom. The toilet was tucked between the tub and the sink, leaving no space for a wheelchair. “I think we’d better just head back to the hotel… like, as soon as possible, please.”
Natalie nodded, seeming to understand my sense of urgency. “Okay. Let’s go say goodbye to my parents, and then we’ll get out of here.”
I followed her back to the dining room, where her mom and dad were finishing dessert. “Is everything all right?” Bev asked, looking from me to Natalie with an expression of mild concern.
Natalie shook her head. “We’re gonna take off now. Sorry we can’t stay longer, but Kevin’s not feeling well.”
“Oh no!” Bev, at least, seemed genuinely disappointed that we were leaving early. “Is there anything we can do? We’ve got Pepto-Bismol if your tummy’s upset,” she offered, turning her gaze back to me.
Like mother, like daughter, I thought, suppressing a smile as a wave of deja vu washed over me. It wasn’t the first time Natalie’s mom had offered me some of the pink medicine after an extended bathroom break. But I shook my head, not wanting to stay in that house any longer than necessary. “No, thanks. I think I just need to get back to the hotel.”
“Probably best,” said Bill, rising from his chair. “I’ll walk y’all out.”
I wanted to tell him that wasn’t necessary, but I said nothing as I wheeled myself to the door. Bill held it open for me, then followed me and Natalie all the way down the plywood ramp from the front porch to the driveway.
“You sure you don’t want an extra pair of hands, sweet pea?” he asked his daughter, patting the hood of her car as she opened the passenger door and pulled out my slide board.
“Yep, I’m sure. There’s not really room for an extra pair of hands anyway,” Natalie replied, stepping back out of the way so I could maneuver my wheelchair into position next to the opening. I kept my head down, wanting to avoid her father’s watchful gaze as she assisted me with yet another transfer. Having already done so a dozen other times that day, Natalie acted like it was no big deal. But Bill had a way of making me feel like a burden, even as I tried my best to make it easier for her. First, I leaned far over to the right, so Natalie could reach over my left shoulder to wedge one end of the slide board underneath me. Then I leaned forward, like I always did, so she could grab my hips and guide them across the board.
But, this time, that turned out to be a bad decision.
The moment my body doubled over, putting extra pressure on my abdomen, all the gas that had accumulated inside it since dinner was suddenly forced out in the form of a mortifyingly long, loud, liquified fart. As Natalie burst out laughing behind me, I looked up in horror to see her dad’s jaw drop.
“Dang, son! That sounded like a wet one!” he exclaimed, his shocked expression twisting into one of total disgust. “Did you just soil your britches?”
“Dad!” Natalie admonished him, quickly regaining her composure.
As usual, I couldn’t tell whether Bill was kidding or not. But, this time, it didn’t matter because, either way, I was pretty sure he was right. I may not have been able to feel that far down, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t smell myself.
“Excuse me.” In spite of my embarrassment, I managed to stammer an apology, although it was directed more at Natalie than her dad. “I… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”
“It’s okay, Kevin.” Natalie gave my shoulders a reassuring squeeze as she pulled me upright in my chair. She understood that I couldn’t control my flatulence any more than I could control the rest of my bowel function. To her father, she said, “If you really want to be helpful, Daddy, why don’t you run back in the house and grab an old towel or something we could put down on the car seat? Just in case.”
Of course, she didn’t want to risk the possibility of shit seeping through my sweatpants and into her car’s upholstery. I couldn’t blame her. But as I watched her father walk away, I wished she would just push me into the passenger seat and peel out of the driveway before he came back. I would have rather died right there on the spot than faced him again. In fact, as we waited for him to return, I found myself praying for a massive sinkhole to open in the ground underneath my wheels and swallow me, chair and all.
“Should we go back inside, too, so we can, uh… assess the damage and clean it up, if necessary?” Natalie asked awkwardly. She knew by now that I always carried a pair of clean shorts and underwear in my bag, in case of an accident, although I rarely needed to use them.
I shook my head adamantly. “No. Let’s just go back to the hotel and take care of it there.” The absolute last thing I wanted to do was change my pants on a piece of her parents’ furniture. Bev would probably make a big fuss and embarrass me even further, while Bill would find yet another reason to disapprove of me marrying his daughter.
“Okay,” Natalie agreed. Her hand lingered on my shoulder, letting me know that she, at least, wasn’t disgusted by me.
When her dad returned, he covered the passenger seat with a large trash bag and placed a folded towel on top of that. “There you go,” he said, giving Natalie a grim smile. “Just in case.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Thanks,” I echoed as she helped me scoot across the slide board and into the seat. She buckled my seatbelt and closed my door, but I could still hear her talking to her dad outside the car as she took one of the big wheels off of my chair.
“Does this sort of thing happen often with him?” Bill asked her.
“No, of course not! It’s only happened a couple of times since we started dating. We do his bowel program every other day, and that usually prevents accidents from happening,” Natalie explained, popping off the other big wheel. She paused as she opened the back door to put the parts of my chair in the back seat, but when she closed the door again, I heard her add, “Please don’t give him a hard time about it, Dad. You know he can’t help it.”
“Well, can he at least clean himself up, or do you have to do that for him, too?” her father wanted to know.
“He does what he can, and I help with what he can’t,” she replied nonchalantly. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not that big of a deal.”
Bill shook his head. “If you say so.” Then he hugged her. “Try to get some rest tonight. You look tired,” he added as he released her. “We’ll still see you bright and early tomorrow morning, right? Sunrise service starts at seven-thirty.”
“I remember. We’ll be there,” Natalie promised. “Goodnight, Daddy.”
“‘Night, sweet pea.” Bill stood at the edge of the driveway and watched as Natalie walked around to her side of the car, slid behind the wheel, and buckled her seatbelt. When she started the engine, the headlights came on automatically, casting his stone-faced expression into sharp relief.
“Well, if your dad didn’t hate me before, I’m pretty sure he does now,” I said with a sigh as we pulled out of the gravel driveway. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
“What are you talking about? He doesn’t hate you!” Natalie insisted, but I knew she was just trying to make me feel better. “And you have nothing to apologize for. Accidents happen. You’re human.”
“Yeah, but I should have known better. I can’t eat like that anymore, especially not the night before a program day.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Natalie, echoing what she’d told her dad. “Someday, we’ll look back on this night and laugh.”
I hoped she was right, but, deep down, I knew I had probably just ruined any chance I had of becoming part of her family someday. There was nothing funny about that.
***