Chapter 48

“Baby, all I want for Christmas… is… yoooooooooooooooou!” Natalie sang at the top of her lungs, her shrill voice piercing my eardrums as she hit the high note.

“Good Lord,” I said, laughing as I looked over at her. “Every dog in Tennessee must have heard that note. They’re all gonna be chasing after my truck now.”

“Stop!” she giggled, giving my shoulder a playful shove. It wasn’t a hard push, but it was enough to throw me off balance. I slumped sideways, accidentally jerking the steering wheel to the left. “Oh, shoot!” Natalie’s hand shot out to steady the wheel as we swerved into the passing lane, which, thankfully, was unoccupied. “Sorry, babe!” she said as she pulled me upright. “I guess I don’t know my own strength.”

My heart had lodged itself in my throat, hammering so fast that I could hardly catch my breath. I sucked in a few shaky breaths, trying to slow my racing pulse as I concentrated on the road in front of me. “Nah… you just forgot I have shitty balance,” I finally managed to reply, making light of the fact that she had almost caused me to crash my truck because I didn’t want to make her feel bad. We were both fine, and that was all that really mattered, I thought, using my turn signal to ease back into the right lane.

As the Mariah Carey song faded out, a familiar voice came through the speakers. “Frost grows outside the window. First kiss under the mistletoe…”

“Oh my gosh!” Natalie gasped, reaching out to turn up the volume. “It’s your song!”

“It sure is.” I grinned when I realized she was right. It was the first time I’d heard our new single on the radio. “Bells chime inside the steeple. Open the doors, see the people sing. Oh-ohh… oh-ohh…”

We both sang along as we cruised down I-65, Natalie taking the high parts while I covered the low harmonies. By the end of the first chorus, I’d forgotten all about our near miss. I felt good driving down the open road with my girlfriend in the passenger seat and a small pile of luggage packed into the back.

It had been over a month since our trip to Anaheim. After our fight, I had invited Natalie to accompany me to Nashville for a five-day songwriting retreat with Nick and Howie. It wasn’t exactly the romantic getaway she’d been hoping for, but I needed someone to go with me and knew she wouldn’t want it to be Dawn. “I’ll be busy working during the day,” I had warned her in advance, “but at least we can spend the nights together, just the two of us.”

“It’s fine,” she’d insisted. “I have a few friends who live in the area, so I’m sure I’ll find ways to keep myself entertained.”

I had booked an accessible suite at one of the nicest hotels in downtown Nashville, figuring that, if nothing else, Natalie could enjoy a relaxing spa day, swim laps in the indoor pool, order room service, and catch up on her reading while I was in the studio.

It was a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Lexington to Nashville, which was farther than I had ever driven in my modified truck. I was glad to have someone with me for moral support, although I didn’t know what Natalie and I would do if my arms got too tired to continue driving with hand controls – we couldn’t exactly trade places, since my truck didn’t have a driver’s seat. Thankfully, I was doing fine so far. We had already crossed the state line, which meant we were less than an hour away from our destination.

A light drizzle had begun to fall from the dreary, gray sky. I turned on my windshield wipers, hooking my thumb around the adapted toggle on the switch to adjust their speed. Glancing at the dashboard display, I saw that the temperature had dropped more than ten degrees since I’d gotten up that morning, going from the mid-fifties to the low forties in just a few hours. A cold front must have been moving in, bringing clouds and rain with it. I hoped the weather would stay above freezing while we were on the road; I certainly didn’t want to drive in sleet.

No sooner had that thought crossed my mind than the SUV in front of me suddenly veered into the left lane. “Nice signal,” I muttered, although it occurred to me that its tires might have slid on a slick patch in the wet road. I pushed on the brake to pause my cruise control, just in case. As I glanced down at the dashboard to make sure it had gone off, I heard Natalie gasp.

“Kevin!”

My heart leaped back into my throat as I looked up, barely catching a glimpse of something large and metallic-looking lying in the middle of my lane before it disappeared beneath the fender of my truck. “Shit!” I cringed as I felt a bump and heard a loud, grating crunch, which was followed by the unmistakable flapping sound of one of my tires deflating. I knew it even before the low tire pressure alert popped up on my dashboard. The steering wheel began to vibrate as the truck pulled to the left, sending shockwaves up my right forearm. I had to use my shoulder to generate enough force to hold it steady with the tri-pin spinner knob I used to steer one-handed. “Hang on!” I called as I let go of the accelerator, fighting the urge to brake. As the truck began to slow down, I used the heel of my left hand to help stabilize the wheel, somehow managing to guide us safely to the right shoulder of the road.

Once we came to a complete stop, I shifted into park, turned down the radio, and switched on my hazard lights. Then I leaned back in my chair and let out the breath I’d been holding in a long sigh, all the air leaking out of my lungs like they had also been punctured. “You okay?” I asked, looking over at Natalie.

She nodded. “Yeah. Are you?”

Physically, I was fine. But, mentally, I was only beginning to process what had just happened – and what could have happened. I kept replaying the last few seconds in my head, hearing Natalie screaming my name.

“Kevin!”

Or was it Kristin’s voice I was hearing?

“Kevin, watch-!”

The scream definitely sounded more like my dead wife’s that time, her frantic final words cut off by the crash that had killed her. It transported me back to that moment, to the memory of coming to inside the mangled remains of my car while the rescue workers cut through the crumpled metal in order to remove me from the wreckage. I remembered calling Kristin’s name and hearing no response. I had tried to reach out to her, but I couldn’t move. I’d felt so claustrophobic with the rigid brace wrapped around my neck, so tight that it threatened to cut off my airway. Try as I might, I couldn’t seem to take a deep breath.

“Kevin?” Natalie’s voice snapped me back to the present. “Are you okay?”

But the suffocating feeling didn’t go away. My breath caught in my throat. I opened my mouth to answer, but I couldn’t speak. I gaped soundlessly for a few seconds, grappling for air. Then, all of a sudden, the floodgates opened, and I burst into tears, taking great, gasping breaths as my body trembled uncontrollably.

“Kevin! Oh my goodness, baby!” I heard a click as Natalie unbuckled her seatbelt and scooted closer to me. “What is it?” she asked urgently, her wide eyes searching mine. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

Hearing the concern in her voice, I managed to shake my head. I wanted to tell her that there was nothing physically wrong with me, that I had just been forced to relive the worst night of my life, but I was crying too hard to get the words out.

“Oh, baby…” With another click, Natalie unbuckled my seatbelt as well and pulled me into her arms. She didn’t ask any more questions, just held me, rubbing the back of my neck with one hand and whispering, “It’s okay,” while I sobbed into her shoulder. For once, I didn’t resent her for treating me like a child. At that moment, I felt like one.

“I’m sorry,” I said shakily when I finally regained my composure, my breath coming easier as my sobs subsided. Embarrassment set in as I realized how extreme my reaction had been and how much it must have freaked out my girlfriend.

“It’s not your fault,” Natalie replied, now stroking my hair. “There wasn’t enough time to swerve around it.” She thought I was talking about running over the piece of debris.

“No…” I struggled to sit up straight, pushing myself away from her into an upright position. “I know, but… if I’d lost control, we could have gotten hurt… or killed.” Gazing into her twinkly brown eyes, I shuddered at the thought of the light leaving them forever. I was still haunted by the memory of looking at Kristin’s lifeless body in the emergency room without fully realizing it would be the last time I ever laid eyes on her face. Critically injured myself, I’d barely been given a chance to say goodbye before I was whisked away on a gurney, never to see my wife again.

“But you didn’t lose control,” Natalie said, offering me a reassuring smile. “You handled it so well, babe! No one got hurt. You’re okay… and I’m okay. We’re both safe because of you.”

Wiping my eyes, I nodded, but I didn’t feel safe sitting on the side of the interstate with semi trucks whipping past us at seventy miles per hour. “I’d better check the tire and see how much damage I did,” I said, reaching for the button to open my door and lower my chair to the ground.

“What? You can’t go out there now,” Natalie protested, grabbing my arm and pulling it back. “You’ll get soaked!”

“So?” I shrugged, shaking her off me. “I won’t melt.”

“No, you’ll freeze,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Let me do it.”

As much as I hated to admit it, I knew she was right. Cold and damp wasn’t a great combination for someone who could barely control their own body temperature. It would take me a long time to get warm again wearing wet clothes. “All right, fine,” I said with a sigh. “Just… be careful, okay? There’s a lot of traffic out there.”

“I will.” She opened her door and climbed down, her boots squelching into the muddy ground. “Don’t worry,” she called back into the cab before she closed the door. “It’ll just take me a minute.”

But, knowing how drastically life could change in far less than a minute, I couldn’t shake my anxious feeling as I watched her walk around the front of my truck. When she knelt down to inspect the tires, disappearing from my view, I glanced into the rearview mirror to make sure the approaching vehicles were moving into the left lane like they were supposed to.

A knock on my window nearly made me jump out of my skin. Whipping my head toward the sound, I saw Natalie standing next to my door. I fumbled for the button to lower the window.

“Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your left front tire’s shredded,” she said, making an apologetic face. “It’s already completely flat.”

“I figured,” I said with a sigh. “Come back inside. We’ll call Triple-A.” I put the window back up as Natalie climbed back into the passenger seat. I could smell the rain clinging to her damp clothes. “Do you remember what mile marker we passed last? They’re gonna need to know where we are.”

“No… sorry. I could walk until I see a sign,” she offered.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t want you doing that. We can use GPS to figure it out.”

I fiddled around with the maps app on my phone until I found our approximate location, then placed the call to request roadside assistance. “They estimate it’s gonna take about an hour for someone to get here,” I told Natalie, heaving another sigh after I hung up with AAA. “Add that to the time it’s gonna take to get a new tire put on, and we’re gonna be at least two hours late. I’d better call Nick next and let him know.”

“Does your truck have a spare tire?” Natalie asked.

“Probably, but it’s not like I could put it on by myself.”

“I might be able to if someone talks me through it,” she said, sounding uncertain. “I’ve never changed a tire by myself before, but my daddy showed me how once when he taught me to drive. Do you know how to do it? If not, I could call home and ask him.”

I hesitated. It had been many years since I’d last changed a tire. I probably could have done it if I were still able-bodied, but I hated the idea of Natalie kneeling on the wet ground next to my truck with a lug wrench in her hand while I sat inside the dry cab, giving her instructions through the open window. “I think we’d better just wait for help to get here. It’s rainy and cold, and we’re awfully close to the road. I don’t want you to get hurt, and I doubt your dad would be too happy with me if I let you change my tire in this weather.”

Natalie didn’t argue with that, but after a few minutes, she began to grow antsy. “Why isn’t anyone stopping?” she ranted as we sat inside my truck with the engine running and the hazard lights flashing. “Can’t they see we need help? Whatever happened to Southern hospitality?”

“Maybe I should get out and sit by the side of the road in my wheelchair, looking pitiful,” I suggested jokingly. “Someone might stop then.”

“People should be able to see the handicapped symbol on your license plate,” Natalie said seriously, shaking her head in disgust. “I’m gonna get out again. Hopefully they’ll be more willing to help a girl.”

Before I could protest, she opened her door and slipped back out into the rain. I watched in the rearview mirror as she paced back and forth behind the truck, growing wetter and wetter by the minute. “This is ridiculous,” I muttered to myself as I rolled down the window again, ready to tell her to get back into the truck so she could at least stay warm while we waited. As I called her name, another large pick-up truck roared by in the right lane, spraying her with water. “Move over, asshole!” I hollered out the open window, wishing I was still capable of raising my middle finger to flip off the driver.

As it passed us, the truck’s brake lights went on. It pulled over onto the shoulder a few hundred feet ahead, then slowly reversed until it was parked right in front of me. Eyeing the Confederate flag decal emblazoned across the back window, the pro-gun and anti-Obama bumper stickers decorating the tailgate, and the truck nuts dangling from the trailer hitch, I couldn’t help but feel a bit uneasy. “Hey, babe?” I called to Natalie as a big guy in a cowboy hat and boots climbed out of the cab.

“Hey there… y’all need some help?” I heard him address her as he approached my truck. He looked younger than me – late twenties, maybe early thirties at most – and, as much as I hate to admit it, most women would have found him attractive in a rugged sort of way.

“Yeah – you know how to change a tire?” Natalie asked, pointing to the flat as she walked past my open window. “Triple-A’s on the way, but they said it might take an hour.”

The guy frowned as he looked from her to me, surveying the situation. After a few seconds, he nodded. “Y’all got a spare? If so, I can fix ‘er up and have y’all on your way in a fraction of that time.”

Natalie flashed him a big, bright smile. “Oh, thank you! That would be so kind of you. I think we have a spare; we just need to figure out where it’s stored. Any ideas, babe?” she asked, turning to me.

“It’s gotta be somewhere in the back, beneath the bed, I’m guessing,” I said uncertainly. “I’ve got the user manual in the glove box here if you wanna check that.”

“No need,” said the guy with a dismissive wave of his hand. “This here’s a Silverado, right? I’ve worked on these before. First, we gotta get the tools out from under the back seats.”

“Gosh, I’m sure glad you know what you’re doin’,” Natalie said, giggling as she opened the back door for him. “It’s been about fifteen years since my daddy taught me how to change a tire. I kinda forgot how.” Her Southern drawl sounded a little thicker than usual, taking on a flirtatious tone that I didn’t like hearing when she was talking to another man.

“That your daddy in the front seat?” I heard him ask her. “Ain’t he gonna help?”

I felt my face heat up as my heart beat faster, pumping pure rage through my veins. Did I really look old enough to be her father?

“Oh, Lord, no!” Natalie cried, laughing harder. “That’s my boyfriend. He’s a quadriplegic, so he won’t be much help. But I can hand you tools or hold stuff for you – whatever you need me to do.”

Glancing into the rearview mirror, I saw the guy give me a skeptical look. “If he’s a quadri-pa-legic, how the hell does he drive this thing?”

“Hand controls,” I called back to him through gritted teeth. “I can hear every word you’re saying, you know. I may be disabled, but I’m not deaf.”

“Honest question, man. Didn’t mean to offend you or nothin’,” the guy said with a shrug. “I thought quadri-pa-legic meant you was, like, paralyzed from the neck down or somethin’.”

“That’s a common misconception,” I muttered. “It just means I have impairment in all four limbs. I can still use my arms, but I can’t move my fingers.” Why was I even bothering to explain it to him? It wasn’t like he actually cared.

“Damn… that sucks, dude. How’d it happen?”

I shook my head, not willing to relive my trauma for the second time in the last half hour just to satisfy a stranger’s morbid curiosity. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Fair enough.” He reached into the back seat, releasing a latch to lift the seat bottom. “You know, that reminds me of this old horror movie I seen once about a quadri-pa-legic guy who had a pet monkey that was trained to help him out around the house,” he said as he dug the toolkit and jack out from underneath the seat. “Maybe you should get a monkey to help you do stuff.”

Why would I need a monkey when I have people like you? I wanted to retort, but one of the gun stickers on the back of his truck caught my eye. IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU’RE IN RANGE, it said right next to a picture of a pistol. If this guy wasn’t carrying some kind of firearm on his person, he probably had one inside the truck. I didn’t want to piss him off. “I remember that movie,” I said instead. “The monkey starts killing people, right?”

“Well, yeah.” He chuckled. “But they probably wouldn’t do that in real life.”

“Tell that to the woman who got her face ripped off by her friend’s chimpanzee a few years back,” I replied flatly. “Besides, I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to have a pet monkey in real life, at least in Kentucky, where I’m from. They can’t be considered service animals anymore either.”

“For real? Damn. There goes the fuckin’ U.S. government, takin’ away more of our freedoms.” He shook his head as he straightened up, closing the back door. “Hey, can you put the parking brake on and turn the engine off?”

I did, but not before I rolled my window up so I wouldn’t have to listen to his political rant as he went around back to remove the spare tire from beneath the truck bed. I wished Natalie would get back inside the cab with me, but she stayed out in the rain with him, watching as he knelt down to change the tire. I knew I should feel grateful that a good Samaritan had spotted her standing by the side of the freeway and stopped to help her, but deep down, I resented him for coming to her rescue when I physically couldn’t. Despite our differing political views, he had probably been raised with many of the same Southern values I had, chivalry being one of them… but I hated having to rely on the kindness of a stranger to help us out of trouble rather than take care of the problem myself. And what if he had turned out not to be a good Samaritan but a gun-waving lunatic? It killed me to realize that I couldn’t have protected my girlfriend if he’d tried to rape her, rob us, or worse.

While he worked, I found a nearby tire shop for us to take the truck to, knowing we couldn’t drive all the way back home to Lexington on the spare. Then I called Nick to let him and Howie know what had happened. “Don’t even worry about coming to the studio tonight, dawg,” he said. “Sounds like you’ve had a long day. Let’s just start fresh tomorrow.”

I felt a little better by the time I got off the phone with him.

When the guy finished with the tire, I fished fifty bucks out of my wallet to offer as a way of thanking him. “Aw, you don’t need to do that, man,” he told me, but he took the money anyway.

I waited until he had pulled away to start my engine, wanting to put plenty of distance between him and us. As the truck rumbled back to life, I could hear Mariah Carey warbling, “I don’t want a lot for Christmas. There is just one thing I need…”

“Jesus Christ, again?!” I snapped, reaching out to change the station before Natalie could protest. We listened to classic rock the rest of the way to Nashville.

***