Superpower

I got a flat tire today. I was almost back to town when the dashboard lit up, telling me to check the tire pressure. I’m not much of a mechanic, but I was pretty sure “12” on the left front tire wasn’t a good thing at fifty miles an hour. I slowed down, made it to the Target parking lot in Queen Creek, and pulled into a large empty section just as the pressure fell to “5.” It was the warmest day this year, I was wearing a black t-shirt, I needed a bathroom, and I was stranded. The tire looked like it had expired. I wanted to join it.

Just another typical day without you.

I had AAA, but they take forever to arrive anywhere. Fortunately, our son-in-law with the heart of gold came to my rescue. It was a dirty, hot, tiring job, but he had the screw-pierced tire in the Tahoe’s back end and the original spare tire bolted onto my truck in record time. I limped the Tahoe over to Discount Tire, got two new tires ordered, and drove home.

No biggie. I’ve done this before. It wasn’t my first rodeo.

I’ve got a lot of experience at handling minor catastrophes without you, Babe. Your work schedule and my bad luck seemed to always coincide with each other. Like the time I was driving home after dark from church with the two littles and the muffler fell off our Toyota Cressida. Dragging it out of the road, I waited—pre-cellphone era—for some Good, Trustworthy, Samaritan to stop and render aid. Somebody did and soon I made it home with the kiddos to put them to bed and curse used cars and Fire Department shift work.

Any time the kids got hurt, with the exception of one kid’s broken arm, you were always at work and I was always driving our suburbanite ambulance to the doctor’s office. When the vehicles needed tire rotations and oil changes, I’m the one (until you retired) who drove them to the sacred male strongholds known as Discount Tire and Walmart’s Auto Zone where they’d try to talk me, the wife, into new air filters and expensive oil and new windshield wiper blades, and I wished with all my heart you would handle the guy things so I wouldn’t be taken advantage of.

Looks like I’m back to wishing that again.

You often told me I can handle stuff like this. “You’re completely capable,” you said, flinging the compliment at me like a dead fish.

“Yep,” I agreed. “I’m nothing if not capable. It’s my Superpower.”

I know you always had complete confidence in me, except when it came to my sense of direction. And I’m sure when you left this world to enjoy the one we all will be much happier living in someday that you knew I’d rise to the occasion, put on my big girl pants, and carry on. Like the good little McLeod that I am.

But I don’t want to. I don’t want to do any of the things I have to do now without you. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter one iota what I want anymore.

I wanted to call you today and have you come rescue me from the heat and the misshapen tire. Put your arms around me and tell me it was okay and you’d take care of it. I wanted you to meet with the investment guy whose office I’d just left where I had to close out the IRA’s owned by you and open a new one in my name, because I’m your beneficiary and I have no choice but to benefish. I didn’t want to deposit the check I got for selling your truck last weekend, either, but it had to be done. What I wanted was for you to drive up in that truck like you did for five years, grin at me, shake your head, and save the day. But we don’t own that quadcab anymore. I sold it along with your Gator stickers on the back window and the Fire Department logo and the bent tailgate that you created when you backed into a tree on a hunting trip. Because there’s only one of me now and I don’t need two trucks.

I keep having to make decisions about my life without you that I used to make with you and every time I have to do it . . . you die all over again. I couldn’t even watch when the happy new truck owners—soon-to-be newlyweds—drove off in the Dodge Dakota you loved. I just stayed in the house and . . . you know.

I’m sure I’ll be fine. Someday. Everyone says so. I’m braver than I think and all that. And I’m experienced at doing the guy stuff even if I hate it. All those years you spent working, I was the one with the time to take cars to shops, call insurance companies, handle bank statements, and take the dog to the groomer. I can do it. I have no choice.

I’ll just dust off my experience, put it back to work, and pick up where I left off. It’s no biggie.

After all, I’m nothing if not capable. It’s my Superpower.