Chapter Twenty-Two
Drive
Song: Landslide- Fleetwood Mac
Harold Hayes: You should write this story too.
Penny: Don’t you think people will get bored of me re-hashing the past?
Harold Hayes: Do I look bored to you?
Penny: No. I guess not.
It was a warmer day in March. It was too cold to be outside and too sunny to stay locked up in the house. I wanted to prepare sprouts for the garden, but if I put them out, there was a chance they would freeze.
Instead, I focused on nursing James. He was in one of his funks, and I begged him to do something with me all week. Sometimes, it worked, but most of the time, I made no progress.
“Can you take me to the corner store? I need to get a few things,” I asked him repeatedly.
He rolled over and said, “No. I’m tired. I’m going back to sleep.”
I gave up and decided to read instead of harping on him.
Later that week, he rushed into the kitchen and said, “Grab your jacket. We are going on an adventure like you wanted.”
When I pestered him to tell me what we would do, he refused. I tied and fastened the laces of my ropers, grabbed my jean jacket with the puffy snowball collar, and headed out the door.
I went to get in the passenger side when he threw his keys at me and said, “Not today. You are going to drive.”
“I can’t drive! I don’t know how.” I felt panicked. What If I wrecked his pickup?
“That is exactly why you need to learn,” James said, patting me on the back. He took my place on the passenger side and told me to get in.
I sat in front of the steering wheel, nervous but eager to learn.
“Learning to drive is similar to learning how to ride a bike. You just need to take it slow and easy. Go ahead and start her up.”
I put the keys into the ignition and turned it forward. The truck rumbled, and the noise of it running made me jump a bit.
“Great! See, you’ve got this. Now, you must put her in reverse and back out of the driveway. You will want to keep your foot on the brake and ease off of it to move. Are you ready?”
“I think so.”
I looked behind me like I saw James do every time he backed out of a parking space. I shifted the gear into reverse and released my foot from the break.
“Good, slow and steady.”
The truck sped up too much, so my immediate reaction was to put my foot back down, but the vehicle stopped faster than I expected.
James was jerked forward. “Haha. Okay, okay, keep going. You’re doing fine. When you hit the end of the pavement, start turning the wheel left,” he said, motivating me to keep trying.
I took my time backing out of the driveway. Backing up was the hardest part. When we finally got on the road, I became more assured of my abilities.
“That was great. Now, why don’t you drive us to the corner store?”
“The corner store is across town. Can I drive that far?” I asked, while hitting my finger on the wheel.
“I think you can. You are the one who wanted to go,” he said, turning up the volume of the radio.
Although I only drove twenty miles per hour, I felt like I was cruising down the highway.
James cranked his window down and hung his arm into the breeze.
I could see his smile out of the corner of my eye.
We practiced how to stop at stop signs, follow the speed limit, and how much to turn the steering wheel. I yanked the wheel too much, so James held onto the dash for safety. When we reached the corner store, things were going more smoothly.
James told me to run in and ask the cashier to put three dollars on pump number five.
I put the truck in park and dashed through the store to get him a bottle of root beer and myself a Peppo from the ice chest. He surprised me, so I returned the favor with the sodas.
James was pumping gas into the Chevy, tapping his boot on the concrete with a smile on his face.
I handed him the bottle.
“Thanks, I love you,” he said as he popped off the top of the root beer.
That was the James I knew and loved. He was the most understanding and supportive person to me when he was present.
On the way back to our house, he didn’t correct my driving because he knew I could figure it out alone.
We talked about our new music interests, his job, and how school was going for me.
“I am really proud of the woman you are becoming. You are smarter than I have ever been. I wasn’t good at school like you are.”
“I’m not that great. I just like to read and write. I have a B in my math class. Trust me, I am not a genius; I just pay attention and turn in my assignments.”
“Yeah, when I was in high school, I left my homework crumpled up in my locker.”
I laughed. “No wonder you didn’t do very well.”
James wasn’t the best father in the world.
When he got in his funks, he was irritable and hid from me, but we had fun on the days he pushed through.
Sometimes, we fought over little things, like when I didn’t help my mom with the dishes or when I was tired of his cranky remarks when he got off work.
However, at the end of the day he was there for me.
I had so many people in my life who cared about me.
James cared in a way that I wasn’t sure I would survive without.
I know now that he was preparing me for a time when he couldn’t drive me around anymore.
He might have known his fate before I realized he was hurting.
In his death, he left me his prized possession.
Driving helped James collect his thoughts, and he passed that opportunity on to me.