“La ta, la ta-da-da-ta! La ta, la ta-da-da, it’s Christmas time again!”
Looking out the window of our van, I had to laugh. Between the brilliant red, orange, and yellow leaves left on the trees and the pumpkins sitting on the porches of the houses we drove past, it clearly wasn’t Christmas time yet. But, in spite of how weird it felt to be listening to Christmas music a few days before Halloween, I loved the sound of our new song.
“I’ve been… checkin’ my list twice. Got plans to give you your gift tonight… oh-ohh… oh-ohh…” With my voice layered underneath his, even Brian sounded great. Thanks to the magic of technology, our sound engineer in New York had been able to take the separate clips we’d recorded in Orlando and mix them together into one track, which he’d sent to our producers in L.A. and us for final approval. We had been listening to it on repeat during the hour-long drive from Lexington to Irvine, trying to get the lyrics and harmonies down before our Disneyland performance the following weekend. I’m sure our driver was more than ready to drop us off.
“You’re gonna hang a right up here,” I told him as we rounded a curve, coming to a clearing in the thick trees that lined both sides of the road. Up ahead, I could see the campus shared by both the middle school and high school.
“Kinda weird to be going to school on a Saturday, huh?” Howie joked as the van pulled into the visitors’ lot, where there were only two other vehicles parked.
“Even weirder to be coming here with a whole film crew,” I replied as the driver opened the back door and lowered the ramp for me. What I didn’t say was how weird it felt to be rolling up to my old high school as a forty-one-year-old man in a wheelchair. The main entrance looked different than I remembered it, but it was probably more accessible than it had been when I graduated – I was relieved to find a curb cut so I could reach the sidewalk and a push button to open one of the doors.
After visiting each of the other guys’ schools over the course of the week, we had finally made it back to beautiful Estill County, Kentucky, where I had spent my formative years. It had worked out well for me that my hometown visit fell on a weekend; I hadn’t wanted a huge welcoming committee waiting to greet me with a bunch of pomp and circumstance, expecting me to take pictures, sign autographs, or give a motivational speech in front of the whole student body. There were only two people I really cared about seeing, and they were both standing inside the front doors.
“Hey, guys!” my algebra teacher, Ms. Niece, greeted us, bending down to give me a big hug. “How are you, Kevin?”
I gave her a kiss on the cheek and a warm embrace. “Good – how are you?”
“I’m good, too. It’s so good to see you back!” she said, patting me on the shoulder.
When she let go, I introduced her to the other guys. As she greeted each of them by name, I turned to her husband, who also happened to be my former football coach. “It’s nice to see you,” I told him as we hugged each other as tightly as the wheelchair would allow.
“It’s good to see you, too,” he said. “You look good.”
“Thank you. You’re looking good,” I replied, smiling up at him as he straightened and took a step back. His hair was grayer than it had been the last time I’d seen him, yet he looked even taller than I remembered him as he towered over me in my chair.
“What’d you do now?” he asked, his eyes dropping to the boot on my foot.
I chuckled. “Technically, it’s a sports injury.” I paused, then added with a wry grin, “I dropped a bowling ball on my foot the other day. Broke one of the bones.”
“Oh, dear,” he said, laughing along with me. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“No, but it’s not so bad either.” I shrugged. “I didn’t feel it, for one… and I didn’t have to worry about renting a pair of crutches or anything since I already had the wheelchair.”
He flashed me an indulgent smile. “I always appreciated your positive attitude, both on and off the field. I can see that hasn’t changed a bit, even after all you’ve been through,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder.
I decided it wasn’t the right time to tell him how depressed I’d been after the accident, especially with the cameras rolling, recording everything for the documentary. Instead, I turned my chair around to introduce Coach Niece to the rest of the guys. While they shook hands, I looked around the lobby. “Wow, this has changed!”
“I thought you would find it changed a little bit since you were here,” Ms. Niece said, smiling. “We’ve been going through the senior photos, trying to find you on your senior trip, but we’re not sure which class.”
“Eighty-nine,” I said, glancing up at the framed class photos that had been hung over the entryway. It didn’t take me long to find mine. “There I am, right there.” I gestured toward the one in the middle, right between the two sets of doors. “Top left corner, on the end of the second-to-last row.” I would have been able to reach up and touch my face in the photo from my full standing height, but I had to rely on Nick to point me out instead.
“All right, well, that was quick,” Ms. Niece said, laughing.
“I’m on both ends… ‘cause they do a panorama,” I added, recalling how I had started out standing on one side, then run around behind the rest of my class to get to the other side while the photographer was slowly panning across us to take the picture of us lined up in front of the U.S. Capitol. “I got sunglasses on on that end, and then I took ‘em off on that end.”
“That is funny, dude,” Nick said as the others chuckled.
My smile faded as I stared up my seventeen-year-old self, forever preserved behind the glass of the picture frame in blurry black and white. I looked so young… and so tall. My life had seemed pretty perfect back in high school. I was popular, both among the guys and with the ladies. I had a steady girlfriend and a great group of friends. I worked hard and got good grades. I was a star football player, a regular performer in the annual talent show, and the lead in the fall musical, Bye Bye Birdie. Of course, all that was small potatoes compared to what I would go on to do with my life, but there was still a part of me that wished I could go back and experience it all over again.
Swallowing the lump that had risen in my throat, I told the others how Ms. Niece had talked me into singing my first solo for her talent show fundraiser. “She inspired me to step out on my own,” I said, reaching out to hug her again.
It was hard not to get choked up as I talked about the impact she and her husband had had on my life and the lives of so many other kids in our community, the lessons that playing football had taught me about hard work and dedication and sacrifice. “You know, if you wanna go out there and run out under those lights on Friday night, then you’ve gotta put in the work over there-” Pausing to clear my throat as it threatened to close on me, I pointed through the front doors to the field across the road where I had spent so many long, hot days running play after play with my teammates. “-on the practice field every day… and it’s the same way in life.” Tears filled my eyes as I thought about how hard I had worked to get to where I was. “You know, I’ve been paralyzed for almost five years now, and every day is still a struggle for me, but I’ve come a long way since I first got hurt. And I credit a lot of the progress I’ve made to the work ethic you helped instill in me,” I told my coach as tears trickled slowly down my cheeks. “Without that, I probably would’ve given up a long time ago.” I wiped my eyes with the side of my hand, uncomfortably aware of the cameras aimed at my face.
But I wasn’t the only one caught crying on camera during the filming of this documentary. Nick had bawled like a baby when we visited his elementary school, where one of his old teachers had given him a DVD of an old video of him performing in his school’s production of The Phantom of the Opera. Hearing the stories he’d told about his turbulent home life, the troubled kids in his neighborhood, and the hard time he’d had fitting in at school had reminded me that Nick hadn’t grown up the same way as the rest of us. While I had fond memories of my childhood, most of the memories he had shared with us were painful.
Our time in Tampa had only reinforced my belief that joining the Backstreet Boys was the best thing that had ever happened to Nick – not because of the money and fame it had brought him but because of the family he’d found in the four of us. Brian, Howie, AJ, and I had become the big brothers Nick had never had and the positive role models he’d needed. We had all taken him under our wing at one point or another and helped to raise him in some way, each of us playing a part in molding him into the amazing man he had turned out to be. Maybe that had been my way of paying it forward, passing on the life lessons I’d learned from playing football for an amazing coach and mentor.
Once I regained my composure, we took a tour around the inside of the school before heading outside to the football field, where I had played for four years under the Friday night lights.
“All right, fellas, this is the home of the Engineers,” I said as I rolled myself out onto the track. A flood of emotions washed over me when my wheels touched the grass. “This is where we played football.” The field looked so different from my current vantage point. It seemed smaller, somehow, without a crowd of people packed into the stands, yet, to me in my wheelchair, it felt much bigger than it had when I’d stood in the sidelines in my pads and uniform. It was hard to believe I used to be able to run the full length of the field and back without stopping to think about it, but I still remembered the feeling as clearly as if I’d done it yesterday: the burning in my legs as I pushed myself forward, my feet pounding against the muddy ground, my arms pumping at my sides, my chest threatening to burst as my heart thudded against my ribs and my lungs panted for air. It had been a long time since I’d felt the physical rush of running as fast as I could. The effort it took just to push myself over the grass served as a harsh reminder that I would never experience that sensation again.
Instead, I sat on the sidelines and watched while Nick and Brian ran up and down the field, passing a football the current coach had found for us to toss around. “Red eighteen, red eighteen, go!” Brian called, drawing back his arm to throw a pass while Nick went long. “Over the shoulder, turn the other way…” The ball sailed across the field in a high arc and landed right in Nick’s hands.
“Nice pass, cuz!” I called. “Nice catch, Nick!”
“Yo, Kev, get your ass out here!” Nick hollered back. “Howie, help him!”
Howie pushed me onto the field as Nick trotted over to us. “Here,” he said, putting the ball in my hands. “Let’s see what you got, Richardson.”
I snorted. “Not much. I can’t even throw a perfect spiral anymore.”
“Show me. C’mon.” Nick clapped his hands, then opened them to receive a pass as he jogged a few paces backward. Picking up the ball with both hands, I raised it over my head and threw it as hard as I could. It wasn’t pretty, but Nick caught it. “Yeah! Complete pass, baby!” he cried, spiking the ball into the ground as the others applauded. I knew they were only humoring me, but, even so, I couldn’t help smiling.
Before long, we were running plays. Nick, playing center, would snap the ball to Brian, the quarterback, who would hand it off to me, the fullback. Then Howie, the halfback, would run me down the field while Nick and Brian tried to block AJ, the linebacker, from touching me.
“Touchdown!” Brian called triumphantly, raising his hands over his head as Howie pushed me into the endzone.
“How come I’m the only one on defense?” I heard AJ complaining behind me. “It’s four against one! How is that fair?”
“You’re just mad you can’t catch a guy in a wheelchair,” Nick taunted him.
“Yeah, not with you trying to tackle me to the ground!” AJ fired back. “Let’s see you play defense!”
We changed positions, putting Nick on defense and Brian behind me at halfback. But watching Howie try to hike the ball to AJ was downright comical. No matter how many times they tried, they couldn’t seem to get it right. Whenever Howie did manage to toss the ball between his legs and into AJ’s hands, AJ would drop it.
“You two are hopeless,” I said, laughing as I shook my head. “Coach Niece would have made us run suicides ‘cause of you.”
“Does that mean we can quit now?” Howie asked hopefully, flashing AJ a sheepish grin.
I nodded. “Take a knee, y’all.”
With the other guys gathered around me and the cameras rolling, our director asked, “Kevin, can you talk more about what football taught you about being part of a team, part of a group?”
“Of course.” I cleared my throat, taking a moment to collect my thoughts as I looked across the field where I’d spent so many Friday nights playing my heart out alongside my teammates. It had been almost twenty-four years since my last game, yet the memories of our most triumphant wins – and heartbreaking losses – were still fresh in my mind. “A football team is a family and becomes a family,” I began. “You gotta care about one another and play for one another, not just play for yourself. And, you know, in any group, where you’re doing something together… everybody’s dependent on one another.”
My eyes dropped to the four guys kneeling in front of me as I went on. “With the guys, we’re a family. You know, we love each other; we care about each other. If one person’s not doing his best, then we all suffer.” I tried not to look directly at Brian, but I thought about his struggles during our recording session earlier in the week and how hard it must have been for him to hear his old choir teacher talk about what an incredible voice he’d had when we’d visited his high school the previous day. “So, if one goes down, we all go down.” I glanced at AJ instead, remembering that it had been his idea to add harmony to Brian’s vocals. “You care about each other; you lift each other up.” Then I caught Nick’s eye, recalling how he and Howie had found a way to include me in the football game, wheelchair and all. “And… and that’s what I learned in football,” I finished.
“Well said, Kevy Kev.” AJ started a slow clap as he rose to his feet.
“Wise words from our very own team captain,” added Howie with a wink.
“Thanks, fellas, for having my back all these years… and for lifting me up when I was down,” I said, wiping away the fresh batch of tears that had welled in my eyes. “I love y’all.”
“Love you, too, bro,” Nick replied, brushing dirt off the knees of his red sweatpants. He was the first to wrap his arms around me, but the others quickly followed suit.
“Aww… group hug!” Brian gushed, flashing a cheesy smile as the five of us formed a huddle and embraced each other.
***
After we left the high school, we drove up to Cathedral Domain, following the same route I’d driven with Mason on my wedding anniversary. If I were still able-bodied, I would have asked our driver to drop us off at the bottom of the hill and had the guys hike up to the camp with me. Thankfully for them, my injury had made climbing hills a thing of the past. Just pushing my wheelchair over the flat, paved footpaths that connected the cabins was a good workout for me.
I gave the guys a tour of the grounds, taking them to the log cabin where I had lived with my family until I’d left home and made my fateful move to Florida. “This is where my dad spent his final days,” I told them, swallowing hard. Staring at the cabin, I could clearly recall the day I’d pulled up in my car, having driven home from Florida, and found my dad waiting for me at the front door, looking like a shell of his former self. I didn’t know it then, but it was the first time he had been out of bed in weeks. He hadn’t wanted me to know how bad he was doing.
It had been twenty-one years since his death, which meant I’d been living without him longer than I’d had him in my life, but the passing of time didn’t make it any easier for me to talk about it. I still got choked up recounting the story of how I’d found out about his cancer.
Howie was the first to come over and hug me. “I know what you went through, bro,” he murmured in my ear, holding me until I had collected myself enough to continue. Of course, he understood exactly how I felt, having lost his own father to cancer a few years ago. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him swipe at his eyes as I finished telling the story.
On my other side, Brian was wiping away tears, too, reminding me how much my father’s death had affected our whole family. When I lost my dad, Brian lost his uncle. Our holidays had never been the same since.
“My father’s all over this place,” I said as I looked around. “Great memories living here.” Sniffling, I wiped my nose with the side of my hand. “C’mon down this way.”
I led the guys to the cathedral and took them inside, telling them about how I’d passed the time during the long, lonely winters with music, singing and teaching myself to play the piano.
When we came back out, I noticed a new van parked next to ours in the lot. I recognized the name and logo of a mobility company based out of Lexington on the side panel, but I wasn’t sure what it was doing at the camp.
Before I could ask, Brian cleared his throat. “So, Kev, I know we’re a few weeks late, but the guys and I wanted to get you a belated birthday gift. Why don’t you come over here with us for a sec?”
Curious, I followed him to the van. A man in a polo shirt and khakis climbed out of the driver’s seat and introduced himself as Zack as he shook my hand. Then he opened the double doors in the back of the van. My breath caught in my throat when I saw what was inside.
“Are you kidding me?!” I exclaimed as Zack lowered a ramp and rolled out the most badass wheelchair I had ever seen. The top half looked like a typical power chair with a padded seat and a joystick attached to one arm rest, but the bottom looked more like a bulldozer, with large treads instead of wheels.
“It’s an all-terrain chair,” Zack told me. “These guys thought you might like to get back out on the trails and take them hiking. This baby can handle bumpy dirt roads and hills. It’ll go through gravel, mud, sand, and snow without getting stuck.”
“Wow,” I whispered, wheeling myself closer to take a better look at my new toy. “It’s like the tank of wheelchairs.” The seat cushion and frame were even camouflage-patterned, clearly designed with hunters and outdoorsmen in mind.
Howie chuckled. “Nick said the same thing. He’s the one who saw this online and sent it to the rest of us. We all thought it was pretty sweet.”
I glanced over at Nick, who was smiling. “And you really bought it for me? We’re not just renting it for the day?”
“It’s all yours, buddy,” AJ confirmed. “When you’re done with it for today, Zack here will deliver it right to your house. Brian talked to Dawn about it a couple weeks ago, so she knows it’s coming.”
I couldn’t believe it. “This thing must have cost a fortune,” I said, remembering how expensive my custom power chair had been – roughly the same price as an economy sedan.
“Well, we are multi-millionaires,” Nick reminded me with a crooked grin. “Between the four of us, we could more than afford it. What’s the point of having money if you can’t use it to get cool gifts for your friends?”
“Good point,” I replied faintly, still stunned by their generosity. “Thanks, guys. Seriously, thank you all so much. This means the world to me.”
“You’re welcome.” They smiled at each other, looking pretty pleased with themselves.
“Well, c’mon, let’s get you into this thing, Kevin,” Nick said eagerly. “I’ve been dying to see it in action.”
I parked my manual chair alongside the power chair, then turned to Nick with a frown. “I didn’t bring my sliding board with me.” Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem – Nick knew how to do a pivot transfer – but the doctor had warned me not to put any weight on my broken foot.
“I think I have one,” said Zack. “Hang on a sec.” He climbed into the back of the van and came back out a minute later with a wooden transfer board. Nick helped him wedge it under me so I could carefully slide across to the other chair. Once I was positioned correctly on the padded seat, Zack showed him how to buckle me in with a heavy-duty harness that went over my shoulders and across my chest, along with a series of straps to hold my legs and feet in place. “How’s that feel?” he asked when he was done.
“Fine,” I said with a shrug as I looked down at myself. Of course, I couldn’t feel much, but I didn’t notice any obvious signs of discomfort. I only had one concern: “Not sure how I’m going to do weight shifts with all these straps tying me down, though.”
Zack chuckled. “Trust me, you won’t need to worry about weight shifts once you take this baby off-road.”
“Why? How fast does it go?”
“Up to five miles an hour – about the same pace as a brisk walk. It doesn’t sound fast, but it’ll feel fast at first.”
He was right. Once he had talked me through the basic operation, which wasn’t much different from the power chair I had at home, he stepped back so I could take it for a spin around the parking lot. I was impressed by the chair’s speed, but it wasn’t until I left the flat, paved surface of the parking lot and went onto one of the packed dirt trails that I felt its full power. The treads rumbled over every ridge and divet in the path with relative ease, taking me past protruding tree roots, rocks, and other obstacles that would have forced me to turn back in any other chair. It was a bumpy ride, though. I soon understood why Zack had said I wouldn’t need to worry about weight shifts – the bouncing of the chair took care of that for me, jostling me around on the seat cushion. No wonder it came with so many straps. But I didn’t mind. The rush of adrenaline it gave me was invigorating.
“This is great, you guys,” I said happily, rolling down the trail while the others walked behind me. “I didn’t know they had wheelchairs that were capable of this kind of thing. I never thought I’d be able to go hiking again.”
Suddenly, a whole new world of opportunity had opened up to me. I pictured myself hitting the trails with Natalie, the two of us strolling hand-in-hand through the woods. I could even bring Mason back here and show him the parts of the camp I couldn’t access the last time.
“So, where ya takin’ us, Kev?” Brian asked as he followed me down the winding path. “Anywhere in particular?”
I hadn’t realized it until he asked, but, all of a sudden, I realized where we were heading. “The outdoor chapel,” I answered, a hard lump rising in my throat. “Where Kristin and I got married.”
“That’s what I thought,” he replied in a low voice. “I remember coming this way for your wedding.”
I nodded. “I couldn’t make it that far the last time I came here – a few months ago, on our anniversary. But I think this chair will get me there.”
Sure enough, the ground eventually leveled out as we emerged into a clearing in the woods, where a stone altar had been constructed in front of a large wooden cross that was flanked by two stone pillars. It didn’t look like much that day, but the mere sight of it brought tears to my eyes, making my vision blur. The image in my mind’s eye was much clearer. I pictured it the way it had looked on my wedding day, with beautiful flowers and flickering candles covering every surface, the ground carpeted by rose petals instead of dead leaves, and our closest friends and family sitting on the stone benches that faced the altar. I would have given anything to go back to that day, the happiest day of my whole life.
I drove my chair down the aisle I had last walked with Kristin by my side and stopped in front of the altar where we had stood hand in hand and said our vows, promising to love and honor each other until we were parted by death. We had planned to grow old together, but even though our marriage had only lasted seven short years, we had both kept that promise and fulfilled our vows.
Bowing my head, I folded one of my curled hands over the other and closed my eyes. “I love you, baby,” I murmured, hoping her spirit could still hear me somehow or sense my feelings for her. The wind rustled through the leaves that remained on the trees, carrying my whispered words into the clouds. “I miss you.”
A loud cawing sound over my head caused me to look up, my eyes flying open as my heart leapt into my throat. Perched on top of the large cross behind the altar was a lone crow. As I watched, it tipped its head back and let out another harsh caw.
“Dude, that scared the crap out of me,” I heard AJ say with a shaky laugh. “Creepy-ass crow.”
But rather than creep me out, the crow filled me with a sense of hope. It looked like the one tattooed on Natalie’s back and the one on the bracelet she’d given me, yet it also reminded me of the black bird that had watched over me while I was in the ICU. “Maybe Kristin sent it,” I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth before I could stop them.
I turned my head to find the four other guys staring at me with expressions that ranged from sympathetic to cynical. “No offense, Kev, but if your dead wife wanted to send you a message from beyond the grave, wouldn’t she have picked a prettier bird to be her messenger?” AJ asked, raising his eyebrows at me.
I shrugged. “You’re probably right. Just wishful thinking on my part.” I forced a laugh as I looked down again, dragging my thumb across the black leather bracelet on my wrist. “You know, after my dad died, my mom would always look for cardinals, especially around Christmas time. She says cardinals appear when angels are near… and that they represent loved ones who have passed on. I guess I just thought maybe crows could, too.” It sounded so stupid when I heard myself say it out loud, but, deep down, I still wanted to believe that the appearance of another black bird was a sign – though, of what, I wasn’t exactly sure.
In the hospital, my drug-fueled hallucinations had seemed sinister at first. The bird I’d seen hovering over my bed at night had resembled a raven, which I associated with death and grief. But the last time I’d seen it, it looked much smaller, like a blackbird. “Blackbird singing in the dead of night… take these broken wings and learn to fly…” That was the first time I’d managed to move a muscle below my neck. Ever since then, I had seen it as a symbol of hope and perseverance. Now, I couldn’t help wondering if it was neither a raven nor a blackbird but a crow all along. Maybe Kristin was trying to tell me to move on with my life – and with Natalie.
But moving on wasn’t easy. It was hard enough to force myself to turn my tank of a wheelchair around and leave the chapel, even harder to make the long trek back up the hill. While I was still struggling to contain the flood of emotions and memories that being back at the camp had unleashed, I could hear AJ complaining about his knees as he struggled to keep up with the rest of us. The film crew followed him, their footsteps crunching over the fallen leaves.
Eventually, we finished our hike and found our way back to the parking lot, where Nick helped me transfer from my new all-terrain power chair to my old manual one. “Thanks again for that, fellas,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat as I watched the mobility guy, Zack, load their gift into the back of his van. “It meant the world to me to be able to go down there with y’all.”
Afterwards, we all piled back into our van and drove down the mountain for lunch at the Wigwam Drive-In. Nick sat next to me, scrolling through his phone as we waited for our food. At first, I assumed he was just catching up with Lauren since the cell service near Cathedral Domain ranged from spotty to nonexistent. But, all of a sudden, he looked over at me and said, “You know, Kev, I’ve been thinking about what you said back at the camp about cardinals and crows. I looked it up, and crows symbolize all kinds of things in different cultures. A common one is death, but they can also be a symbol of rebirth. The Native Americans believe they’re messengers between the living and the dead. So, who knows? Maybe Kristin was trying to give you a sign.”
I smiled at him, touched by his attempt to make me feel less foolish. “Thanks, Nick. I dunno… It could just be a coincidence, but I’d like to believe she’s up there with my dad somewhere, watching over Mason and me. And, if that’s the case, I want her to be okay with me dating again.” I paused, then added, “Natalie has a tattoo of a crow on her back. It’s for her last name, Crawford. That’s why she gave me this.” I showed Nick the bracelet, turning my arm so he could see the black feather tied across the top.
“Hm… Well, if Kristin did send the crow, I’d say that’s a pretty clear sign that she’s okay with Natalie,” he replied, smiling back at me. “So… when are you gonna propose?”
As the other guys gave me curious looks, I laughed and shook my head. “Not anytime soon. We’ve only been together for six months. I haven’t even met her family yet.”
“Well, when is that happening?”
“Hopefully around Christmas. Her birthday is a few days before, so she invited me down to Georgia to celebrate with them.”
Nick nodded. “Okay, so you go down there, meet her parents, ask for their permission to marry her – ‘cause I know you’re a traditional kind of guy who cares about that kind of stuff – and then you can pop the question in front of her family on Christmas.”
“Well, you’re right about one thing: I would never propose to a woman without getting her parents’ blessing,” I replied firmly. “But I’m not planning to do that the first time I meet them. They need to get to know me first. And I need to be sure Natalie’s the one.”
“What aren’t you sure about?” Nick pressed. “You told me you two were closer than ever now that… never mind.” As his cheeks reddened, I recalled our conversation from earlier that week when I’d confided in him about letting Natalie learn my bowel program. I suppose he realized that wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted him to repeat in the middle of a crowded restaurant.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean we’re soulmates,” I said. “To be honest, I’m not sure a person can have more than one soulmate.” And that was my only reservation, I suddenly realized. Natalie and Dawn seemed to have moved past their mistrust of each other, and I was no longer worried about how Mason would react to having a stepmother. My family and friends all seemed to like Natalie, too. I felt reasonably confident that even Kristin would have liked her if she’d had the opportunity to know her. But visiting the sight of my wedding ceremony had made me question whether I loved her as much as I’d loved my late wife. Was it even possible to love another woman as much as I had loved Kristin?
I thought of my mother, who had been a widow for over twenty-one years now. As far as I knew, she had never even dated after my dad’s death, let alone remarried. He was her soulmate, and she must have known she would never find another one. Or maybe she was just afraid to fall in love again. I understood that fear. Perhaps we had both built walls around our hearts to protect them from being broken again.
“I don’t think that’s true,” AJ spoke up. “I mean, I don’t really believe in the concept of a soulmate anyway. There are seven billion people on this planet. If there were only one person we were meant to be with, what are the odds that we would even find them?”
“Not everyone does,” Brian said with a shrug. “That’s why the divorce rate is so high.”
“Well, I still think it’s bullshit,” AJ said firmly, folding his arms over his chest. “Love is infinite. There’s enough for more than one person – not at the same time, mind you, unless you’re in an open relationship, but…”
Listening to him ramble on, I was reminded of what I’d told Natalie the night we had argued over her insecurity about the other women in my life. “You know what my momma used to say when my brothers and I would fight as kids and accuse her of loving one of us more than the others? She always told us her love didn’t have to be divided between us because it had multiplied when each of us was born. And if a mother’s love can grow that way, why can’t a man’s love?”
“AJ’s right,” Nick said, looking back at me. “Forget the soulmate thing for a second. You love Natalie, right?”
I nodded. There was no doubt in my mind about that much.
“You wanna spend the rest of your life with her?”
I sighed. “How could I possibly know that? I haven’t even spent a whole year of my life with her yet,” I said, starting to get annoyed with his line of questioning. “Let’s just get through the holidays first. Then we’ll see how I feel.”
Thankfully, our waitress arrived with our burgers and fries, sparing me from any further interrogation. Watching Nick take a big bite out of his cheeseburger, I seized the opportunity to turn the tables back on him.
“So, Nick,” I said while he was chewing, “speaking of girlfriends, when are you gonna propose to yours?”
Nick’s face flushed as he smirked around a mouthful of food. Swallowing, he replied, “Let’s just get through the holidays first. Then we’ll see how I feel.”
***