Chapter 78

“So, how was your weekend in Georgia?” Dawn asked me on Tuesday morning as she helped me get dressed. “Neither you or Natalie had much to say about it when you got home yesterday.”

Looking up at the ceiling over my head, I let out a humorless chuckle. “That’s because it was a total disaster.”

“Oh no! What happened?” Dawn wanted to know.

“More like, what didn’t happen?” I told her about my awkward encounter with Natalie’s ex, Derek, at the airport, about puking all over myself in the plane and shitting my pants in front of Natalie’s father, and about my fight with Natalie the following night. “After all that, I figure it’s probably for the best that we’re spending the rest of the week apart.”

Natalie had left at the crack of dawn to catch a commuter flight back to her base in Atlanta, where she had to report for duty later that day. After working mostly domestic flights during the month of March, so she could spend her nights at home with me, she had returned to her preferred long-haul schedule, which gave her more days off in between the international trips she’d been assigned in April. She was working a nine-hour flight to Paris that night and needed time to pack her bag and take a nap beforehand. “I wish you could come with me,” she’d said wistfully before she kissed me goodbye that morning, but, secretly, I was glad she was going to France without me. After failing to win over her father, I needed some time alone to figure out my next move.

“Yikes,” said Dawn as she hitched my pants up over my hips. “No wonder you didn’t wanna talk about it last night. Let’s hope our trip to Vegas this weekend goes a lot better.”

“Yeah… let’s hope,” I echoed hollowly. I had been looking forward to taking Dawn to Las Vegas for the Def Leppard show, but it was hard to feel excited when there was so much uncertainty hanging over my head.

“I’m sure it will,” she said, flashing me a reassuring smile as she picked up my right foot and started putting on my socks. “Personally, I can’t wait. It’ll be good to get away for a few days and do something fun to help take my mind off all this health crap I’ve been dealing with lately.”

I felt a stab of guilt when I remembered what Dawn had been going through. My problems seemed like small potatoes compared to hers. “I hear ya,” I replied, offering her a sympathetic smile in return. “Are you sure you don’t want a ride to your doctor’s appointment today?”

“Oh, no, I can drive myself,” Dawn replied quickly, reaching for my shoes. “They’re not planning to knock me out for anything today; it’s just a check-up.”

“I know you can drive yourself, but if you want someone to come along for company or moral support, I’m your man. Lord knows you’ve taken me to enough of my appointments.” Aside from needing a distraction myself, I think I just wanted to feel useful and prove my worth by doing something for Dawn, instead of the other way around. I was tired of lying around, letting other people tie my shoelaces.

Dawn must have understood this on some level. After giving me a long, searching look, she shrugged and said, “Well, all right. Come along, then.” Taking hold of my hands, she pulled me into an upright position. “If all goes well, I’ll even let you treat me to lunch afterward.”

“Works for me,” I said with a chuckle.

An hour later, we were sitting in a waiting room at the cardiology clinic, where we were the youngest people by at least a couple of decades. A few of the gray-haired folks who surrounded us had given us curious glances when we came in, but not for the usual reasons. Most of them were too old to know or care who I was, and since several of them were also in wheelchairs, mine didn’t stand out as much. More likely, I figured, they were just surprised to see two people our age sitting among them on a Tuesday morning. But there was one elderly woman on the other side of the room who wouldn’t stop staring at us. Every time I glanced her way, she was looking back at me over the top of the book she was pretending to read.

Dawn must have noticed her, too. Leaning over to me, she muttered, “Should I go tell that lady to take a picture? It’ll last longer.”

I laughed. “You think she’s a fan?”

“Doubtful. She’s probably just some Nosy Nancy who’s wondering which one of us has the bad heart. The overweight woman? Or the man in the wheelchair? Could go either way, ya know.”

“Me,” I replied automatically as the old lady caught my eye and offered me an indulgent smile. “She thinks it’s me. Look at her sad eyes. She feels sorry for me.” I had seen that same soppy, sympathetic expression on the faces of plenty of other people who had pitied me over the past five years. Fighting the urge to roll my eyes, I forced a tight-lipped smile in return. My momma had raised me to respect my elders – even the rude ones.

But this polite gesture turned out to be a mistake on my part. Taking my smile as an invitation, the woman tucked her paperback into her purse and picked up her cane. “Oh, god, here she comes,” I groaned as she climbed slowly to her feet.

Leaning heavily on her cane, the little old lady tottered over to us. “Hello,” she said kindly, her watery blue eyes twinkling. “I hope I’m not bothering you, but I couldn’t help noticing what a lovely couple you are. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be praying for you, young man.” She reached out her gnarled hand, the one that wasn’t clutching the cane, and wrapped it around mine. “May the Lord bless you and heal you from your affliction. You’re too young to be in that chair.”

I stared up at her, temporarily dumbstruck. “Uh… th-thanks,” I finally stammered after an awkward pause, pulling my hand out of her grip. “But, with all due respect, ma’am, I don’t need your prayers. I’m doing just fine. Believe it or not, I have a pretty amazing life, in spite of my ‘affliction.’”

“I’m actually the one with the heart condition, in case you were wondering,” Dawn chimed in without missing a beat. “Dilated cardiomyopathy. Diagnosed a couple months ago. I’ll take all the prayers I can get.”

Pressing her hand to her heart, the old woman turned to Dawn. “Oh, you poor dear! I had no idea! And here you are, caring for a handicapped husband on top of all that. God bless you both.”

“Oh, we’re not married!” Dawn said brightly. “Just living together in sin. I’m actually divorced. He’s widowed.”

“Oh, my!” As the woman shifted her sad eyes back to me, I shot Dawn a murderous look. She just grinned, a devilish gleam in her eyes.

But before the old woman could start bemoaning my dead wife, the door next to the front desk opened. A nurse stepped out, carrying a clipboard. Glancing down at it, she called, “Trudy?”

“Oh! That’s me!” To my relief, it was the old woman who responded. “I’d better be going now,” she said, beaming at us both. “It was lovely talking to you.”

“You, too. Have a blessed day,” Dawn told her in a voice dripping with syrup.

It took everything in me not to burst out laughing the second that little old lady shuffled away. I could tell by the way Dawn bit down on her bottom lip that she was also trying hard to contain her laughter. I had to look away, knowing I would lose it if I made eye contact with her. We waited until the door closed behind Trudy to start snickering as quietly as we could, not wanting to draw any more attention to ourselves. “You’re bad,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t believe you told her we were ‘living in sin.’”

“I can’t believe you told her you don’t need her prayers!” Dawn hissed back, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “I know what she said was weird and inappropriate, but she was just trying to be nice.”

“Well, it’s not nice,” I muttered, my smile fading. “It’s condescending and ableist. I heard enough of that crap from my cousin after I got hurt.”

She blinked in disbelief. “Wait, Brian said that kind of stuff to you?”

I nodded. “Oh yeah. Brian’s real religious. He believes in miracles and the power of prayer and all that, so he sat at my bedside and read me all the Bible verses about how Jesus healed a paralyzed man. And I’m not saying that it never happened,” I added quickly, speaking in a hushed tone, “or that prayer and a positive attitude can’t help with the healing process, because of course they do. But that wasn’t what I wanted to hear as I was lying in a hospital bed, barely able to lift my own arms, let alone move my legs. It put too much pressure on me – made me feel like I’d be letting him down if I didn’t get better or, worse, that he would think it was my own fault for not believing hard enough. I know he didn’t mean it that way; he was just in denial. Eventually, he came to accept the reality of my situation and stopped talking about me ‘getting back on my feet’ and walking again… but it took a while for him to get there.”

“Wow,” said Dawn. “Sounds like my former in-laws, who were also a bunch of Bible-thumpers. They reacted the same way when Michael was diagnosed with DMD, wanting to pray over him and take him to religious revivals and faith healers and all that kind of crap. Of course, none of it worked. When he got weaker anyway, they just blamed me for my bad genes.”

“That’s terrible,” I said, frowning. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yeah, well, Ben’s parents were never big fans of me to begin with,” she said with a shrug. “I wasn’t the kind of woman they wanted for their son – you know, the sweet, submissive Southern belle. When he married me anyway, they tolerated me for his and Michael’s sake, but there was no love lost between us. I haven’t talked to them since the divorce. Now that Michael’s gone, there’s no need for us to keep in touch.”

“That must have been hard,” I said, thinking of my conversation with Natalie’s dad. I hoped I would have better luck with her mom.

“Yeah. You’re lucky to have such a good relationship with your in-laws,” said Dawn. “I wish it had been that way with mine.”

“If you could go back and do it all again, would you still get married, knowing Ben’s parents didn’t approve?” I wondered.

Before she could answer, the door opened again, and a different nurse called out, “Dawn?”

“Well, whaddya know? They’re actually on time today,” Dawn said as she stood up, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “You don’t need to come back to the room with me. If you don’t wanna wait here, I can just meet you back at your truck when I’m done.”

She must have known that I wouldn’t feel comfortable sitting in the waiting room alone, especially after my awkward encounter with the old woman. “Okay,” I agreed, nodding. “Maybe I will just wait in my truck, then, if you don’t mind. I have a couple of calls I wanna make.”

“No problem. Hopefully it won’t take too long today.”

“Good luck,” I said as she walked away.

Once the nurse had escorted her through the open door, I wheeled myself out of the waiting room and made my way back to the parking deck. In the privacy of my truck, I called my father-in-law first and talked to him and Mason for a few minutes, giving myself some time to work up the courage to call Natalie’s mother.

Finally, I stopped stalling, found the Crawfords’ number in my phone’s contacts, and pressed the call button. As I listened to the phone ring once… twice… three times, I prayed that Bev would be the one to answer. Since it was planting season, it was a pretty safe bet that Bill would be out working in his peanut field, but I didn’t know what I would do if he picked up the phone instead.

Thankfully, after the third ring, I heard a female voice say, “Hello?”

“Hi, Bev?” I said uncertainly. “It’s Kevin. Kevin Richardson.”

“Kevin!” she replied, her surprised tone quickly turning into one of concern. “How are you? Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine,” I assured her, realizing she was probably worried something had happened to her daughter. What other reason would I have had to call her? “I’m feeling better, and Natalie’s fine. She left Lexington early this morning and texted me a couple of hours ago to let me know she landed safely in Atlanta. She doesn’t fly out again until later this evening.”

“Oh, good.” I heard Bev exhale, letting out a soft sigh of relief on the other end of the line. “Paris, right?” she asked.

“That’s right.”

“I thought so. She still sends us her schedule every month, so we can keep track of where she is. It helps with my anxiety, but I still worry about her being in the air so often. You never know when something will go wrong with one of those planes.”

“I get it,” I said, smiling. “My momma’s the same way. If it helps, I’ve been a frequent flier for almost twenty years now and never had any major issues. I always heard flying was safer than driving, and based on my own experience…” My throat tightened, my smile fading. “Well, I believe that wholeheartedly.”

“Yes, that’s what Natalie always tells me, too, and I suppose it’s true. But I still can’t help worrying sometimes. I’m sure you understand, being a parent, too.”

Swallowing hard, I nodded. “Absolutely. I actually just got off the phone with Mason. He’s having a good time with his grandparents in Kansas, but I’ll sure be glad to have him home again. It’s always hard to be away from him.”

“I wish I could tell you it gets easier as they get older, but it doesn’t,” said Bev. “In some ways, it only gets harder because, as they grow up and gain more independence, you have less control over what they do and where they go. I never wanted Natalie to become a flight attendant in the first place, but it was always her dream. I couldn’t stand in the way of her career.”

Sensing my opening, I cleared my throat. “Actually, that’s kind of why I’m calling. I wanted to talk to you about Natalie and her future – not as a flight attendant, but as a wife. Ideally, my wife. I’m in love with your daughter, Bev, and I want to marry her. But-”

“But Bill wouldn’t give you his blessing,” Bev finished for me. “Yes, I heard all about the conversation y’all had Saturday night. I sure wish you would have included me in it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “Believe me, I had every intention of talking to you, too, but I saw an opportunity to talk to Bill about it first, so I took it. I hope you won’t hold that against me. I was just trying to do the traditional thing and ask my girlfriend’s father for permission to propose to her. But, as you already know, he told me no.”

“So now you’ve decided to go behind his back and call me, hoping I’ll give you a different answer. Is that right?” Her sweet, Southern drawl had taken on a sharp tone that told me this conversation wasn’t going to go the way I wanted it to.

Trying to get it back on track before it spiraled out of my control, I said, “Actually, I was hoping you would talk to him and try to change his mind… unless you’re also opposed to the idea of me marrying Natalie.” I held my breath as I waited for her response, hoping I hadn’t completely misread her. Bev had always seemed to like me, but maybe I had mistaken her Southern hospitality for something more than it actually was.

I heard her suck in a deep breath of her own and let it out slowly. After a long pause, she said, “Listen, Kevin… you seem like a good, kind man, and I’m sure you would treat her well. But I can see why Bill has his reservations. You are much older than Natalie – and much further along in life. You’ve already been married once before. You already have a child.”

As I listened to her bring up our differences in age and life experience, I felt a wave of deja vu wash over me. It was like sinking back into an old nightmare.

“I know Natalie could never replace your first wife,” she went on, “but I’m worried she would spend the rest of her life trying. She deserves to be more than a second wife and stepmother. As her momma, I want to see my daughter have a child of her own someday and be able to experience the joys of motherhood for herself, from the very beginning. Do you intend to have children together?”

My throat had gone very dry. I swallowed with difficulty before answering. “We’ve talked about it. I don’t know if Natalie would be ready to start trying right away, but, personally, I would love to have more kids. I’ve always wanted to give Mason a sibling.”

“That’s wonderful to hear,” said Bev, “but, from what Natalie’s told me, I understand that it may be difficult for the two of you to conceive a child.”

I felt my face heat up as I imagined Natalie discussing our sex life with her mother. “It may be difficult to do it the natural way,” I admitted, “but if that doesn’t work for us, there are other ways to have a baby.”

“Ways that involve drugs and needles and would be more dangerous for my daughter, you mean.”

I didn’t know what to say to that – or if there was anything I could say that would change her mind. “So you don’t want her to marry me either,” I finally responded flatly.

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I want. Her daddy already told you how he feels. As a Christian woman, I won’t go against my husband’s wishes. I know Natalie would say I’m being old-fashioned, but I believe in following the traditional roles within a marriage. Bill is the head of our household, so he gets the final say in the matter. As his wife, it’s my duty to submit to him and support the decisions he makes. So, I’m sorry, but I won’t try to change his mind on this one.”

Once again, her words left me speechless. After a long pause, I managed to say, “I see. I guess I’d better let you go then. Thanks for your time.” Then I hung up, before she could hear me break down and cry.

I’m not sure how long I sat behind the wheel of my truck in the dimly-lit parking deck, staring blankly out the windshield at a bare concrete wall while tears streamed silently down my face. Ten minutes? Maybe twenty? All I know for sure is that, in my mind’s eye, I could see my future with Natalie melting away faster than an ice cream cone on a hot summer day. How could I ask her to marry me now, knowing that her family felt I wasn’t worthy of being her husband?

Besides Natalie’s parents, there were only two other people on the planet who knew that I had been planning to propose to her. Having just talked to my father-in-law half an hour earlier, I decided to call the only other person who would understand how I felt.

“Hey, Nick,” I said when he answered his phone. “How’s it going?”

“I’m good, bro! How ‘bout you?” Nick sounded so genuinely happy that I felt a flicker of jealousy spark inside me, which I immediately regretted, knowing how much turmoil he had gone through to finally get to that point. He deserved every ounce of happiness he had found. It wasn’t his fault that the last five years of my life had been so hard.

“I’m… not great,” I replied, figuring I might as well not beat around the bush. Dawn might be back any moment, and I wasn’t quite ready to spill the whole story to her yet.

“What’s wrong?” Nick’s curious tone quickly turned to one of concern.

“So, I went to Georgia this weekend to celebrate Easter with Natalie’s family, right? And I asked her parents for permission to propose to her… but they told me no.”

“What?!” he cried. “Why not?”

“What it basically boiled down to is that they think I’m a nice guy, but I’m not the right guy for Natalie, for all the reasons I was worried about: I’m too old for her and have too much baggage, what with my dead wife and my kid and my ‘live-in help.’”

“That’s bullshit!” Nick spat.

“I know it is. I think it has more to do with my disability than anything else. Bill doesn’t want his daughter to have to take care of a husband who can’t pull his own weight. Bev seemed more concerned about whether or not Nat and I could have kids.”

“What the fuck? Sounds to me like they need to butt the hell out and let their daughter make her own decisions. It’s her life. Her relationship. If none of those things are dealbreakers for Natalie, then why would they be for her parents?”

“I agree with you,” I said. “But, as a parent myself, I also get where they’re coming from. It’s natural to want the best possible future for your child. We both know that being married to somebody like me would make her life harder, not easier. It would mean taking on the new roles and responsibilities of a wife, stepmother, and caregiver and trying to balance them with the ones she already has. Between my career, my kid, and my disability, I do have a lot of baggage that I don’t wanna burden her with.”

“But it’s not like you would be forcing it on her. You’re only asking her to marry you. She still has to say yes.”

“So you think I should ask anyway?” I replied hopefully. “Is that what you would have done if Lauren’s dad had disapproved of you guys getting engaged?”

Nick hesitated. “I dunno, dawg… I mean, probably, but when it comes to family, my perspective is pretty warped compared to yours. I don’t care as much about the parents’ approval – hers or mine. For the record, Lauren’s dad was fine with me proposing to her. My mom’s the one who’s having a complete meltdown over it, posting horrible things about Lauren on her Facebook page, accusing her of turning me against my family – as if she and my dad didn’t practically disown me last year after Leslie died. They can both go fuck themselves, for all I care. I’m done with them. Lo and I already decided we’re not inviting either one of them to the wedding.”

“Oh, Nick…” Hearing him talk that way about his parents made my heart feel even heavier than it had before. While I understood his need to set boundaries, I couldn’t relate to his family situation. The thought of getting married without my own mother present was unfathomable to me. It had been hard enough not having my dad at my wedding, but at least I could comfort myself with the idea that he was watching from Heaven.

“Sorry,” said Nick. “I didn’t mean to make this about me and my fucked-up family. My point was just that I’m probably not the best person to ask for advice about parents.”

“I hear you. And, for the record, I’m sorry your mom’s been talking shit about Lauren. I don’t know what I would do if my mom didn’t like Natalie – which is why I feel so conflicted about this. I don’t wanna put her in an awkward position, where she’d be forced to choose between me and her family, you know?”

“Yeah, I get it, bro. But, for me, it was an easy choice to make. Like, yeah, there’s a part of me that still loves my parents on some inherent level, but I love Lauren more. She treats me better than my mom or dad ever have. She’s my family now. If Natalie loves you like that, she’ll choose you. And if she doesn’t… well, then maybe she’s not the one for you after all.”

No, Kristin was the one. The thought crossed my mind before I could stop it. Immediately, I felt guilty. If I genuinely believed that Kristin was my one and only true love, why was I even considering proposing to Natalie in the first place?

“Yeah… maybe not,” I said with a sigh.

“Don’t sound so defeated, dawg. Based on what I’ve seen, I believe she does love you like that and that she’ll say yes, even if her parents don’t approve. But if you don’t wanna put that kind of pressure on her, you don’t have to propose right away. I mean, what’s the rush? You guys have only been dating for a year. If you give her parents more time to get to know you better, you might be able to win ‘em over.”

“I know. Her dad did say it felt like we were moving pretty fast,” I admitted. “But I don’t wanna wait for long. Life’s too short to waste time – hers or mine. Like I’ve said before, I wish I would have asked Kristin to marry me much sooner than I did. I don’t wanna make the same mistake with Natalie…” But, as I spoke, it occurred to me that Natalie – and her parents – might also be worried about repeating a mistake. They had watched her rush into her first engagement with Derek, and we all knew how that had turned out.

“In hindsight, I probably never should have accepted his proposal,” I remembered her telling me. “But we’d been together for two years, and my parents were pushing me to get married and start a family like my perfect sister did. He popped the question in front of them on Christmas Eve, so I felt pressured to say yes.”

Her parents must have had their own regrets about pressuring her to marry the wrong man. Maybe that was part of the reason why they were so reluctant to give me permission to propose to her. After all, Natalie and I had been together for less than half the length of time she’d dated Derek, and they had only met me twice.

“But maybe you’re right,” I told Nick. “Maybe I am rushing into it. I guess I probably should just put on the brakes for now and focus on spending more time with her family before I bring up the topic of marriage again. If they see that my baggage isn’t too much for her to handle, maybe they’ll change their minds. This weekend wasn’t exactly the best example of that…”

I hadn’t planned on telling him about how I’d shit my pants in her parents’ driveway, right in front of her dad, but the whole humiliating story came pouring out of my mouth anyway. I didn’t care if Nick laughed because I knew that he, of all people, would understand. “I can handle shit,” he had once assured me. “And if you can deal with this shit, so can I.”

“Oh my god, bro,” he groaned when I finished. “That is bad. But look on the bright side: It can’t get a whole lot worse, right? And, like I said, as long as it’s not a dealbreaker for Natalie, who cares what her dad thinks?”

“Yeah… I guess you’re right,” I replied, forcing myself to chuckle. “I’m just gonna have to watch what I eat this weekend, so it doesn’t happen again.”

“Why, what’s going on this weekend?”

“Dawn and I are going to Vegas to see Def Leppard Friday night. I got her tickets to their residency for Christmas.”

“Oh, sweet!” said Nick. “That sounds awesome, dude. Lo and I love Def Leppard.”

“Y’all should join us,” I suggested. “We actually have a couple of extra seats at our table.” I had originally bought two front row tickets, but after Dawn invited me to go with her, I’d called the venue to ask about accessibility and was told they wouldn’t be able to accommodate a wheelchair user in the front row.

“I’m sorry,” the woman on the phone had apologized, “but it’s a pretty tight squeeze on the floor. Even if you could transfer to your seat, there would be no place to put your wheelchair. And unless you’re able to stand, it might be hard for you to see the show. The stage is high, and the front row is so close to it that you’d be looking straight up all night.”

Knowing that would be a literal pain in my neck, I had opted to upgrade our seats to a VIP table, which could fit up to four people and came with extra perks, like an open bar and bottle service.

“I’d love to,” Nick said when I told him this. “Lemme talk to Lauren and look into it. I’ll let you know.”

“Sounds good, brother.” Glancing up into my rearview mirror, I was surprised to see Dawn walking toward my truck. “I’d better let you go now. Thanks for listening.”

“Anytime, bro. Talk to you later.”

“Bye, Nick.” I ended the call just as Dawn climbed into the passenger seat. “Hey!” I said to her. “That didn’t take long at all!”

“Told ya it was just a check-up,” she replied with a smile.

“So? How’d it go?”

“Really well, actually! I’ve lost another ten pounds since my last appointment, and the doctor said I’m doing well, all things considered.”

“That’s great!” I said, smiling back at her. I wasn’t going to let my relationship drama ruin Dawn’s good news. “Let’s go get lunch and celebrate. You pick the place.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she replied. “We should probably go somewhere that has reasonably healthy options. I don’t wanna ruin all the progress I’ve made with one meal.”

“True.” I chuckled. “How about that little Greek place right off of Tates Creek Road? Mediterranean food is supposed to be pretty healthy, right?”

“Works for me,” Dawn agreed.

“Oh, by the way,” I added as we pulled out of the parking deck, “I was talking to Nick before you came back, telling him about our trip to Vegas. He and Lauren both like Def Leppard, too, so I kinda invited them to join us. I hope that’s okay. Sorry I didn’t ask you first; it kinda just came out.”

“That’s fine; I don’t care if they come along,” she said, easygoing as ever. “The more, the merrier! We’ll have a blast together.”

“Yeah.” I nodded, forcing myself to forget about the conflict with Natalie’s family and focus on the fun I would have with my friends that weekend. Dawn deserved to have a good time, and I was determined to make sure that she did. “We definitely will.”

***