Bulldozer (Hard to Love 3)

“Best thing you could do for that son of yours is show him what a loving relationship looks like. If his mother’s happy, he’ll be happy,” Walter says as he cuts into his strip steak.

Whenever Sam is busy with friends, I try to drive out to see him. Walter has become family. And the winter traffic to the Island is practically non-existent, which has made it easy for us to have dinner.

“And watch him wind up paralyzed or worse?” I stare at the flat screen television above the bar of the restaurant, my appetite vanishing as the old film reel of Grant getting hit from behind plays. Perfect timing, jeez.

Walter’s gaze tracks mine and he stops chewing, his mouth flattening into a grim line. “Would it hurt any less if you didn’t have to watch?”

No. That’s what sucks the most.

“I really hate it when you reason with me, Walter.”

He gives me a faint smile, the lines fanning out from his dark eyes creasing together. “What I’m saying is, you wait long enough for something bad to happen and life will oblige you…take my word for it,” he grumbles. “You take what you want now. That way, when the bad happens, you have the good to see you through it.”

It’s hard to argue with a man who’s made mistakes and paid the ultimate price.

By the time I’m back on the road to the city, it’s raining. It’s nearly midnight when I hit the West Side Highway. Traffic is sparse but never empty in Manhattan. I’m on autopilot, my mind locked up.

I think of Walter and how he must have felt when he knew his wife would never come home––gone forever. No do-over. No chance to make the right choices. The thought of not ever seeing Grant again sends a quake through my system. The ground under my feet is liquid.

Could I live with myself if something happened to him in Green Bay and I wasn’t there for him? Would that make it any less devastating if the news reached me late one night as a phone call? No…it would be worse.

He’s mine. Whether he’s here or the moon. Whether he’s here or there, risking his life, I won’t stop loving him. Ain’t Life a bitch. Like Walter said, the bad happens. It’s the good I want to share with him. There’s nobody else I’d share it with.

The Explorer hits a pothole and hydroplanes. The back end fishtails. I snap out of my daze in time to right the SUV before I sideswipe the car in the next lane. With my heart thumping against my breastbone hard enough that my chest cavity feels split in two, I exhale sharply. Laugh nervously. I send up a couple of Hail Marys to cover all my bases. But I’m rejoicing too soon. Because as I drive around a blind bend, the torrential rain takes out a retaining wall of stone blocks along the highway. And all I see before me, as I approach at 60 mph, is a pile of rubble and a disorienting bunch of red taillights.

“You want anything to eat?” Calvin asks.

“No,” I say fidgeting nervously. “I want to go down and let Grant know that we’re here.” I watch my brother take a bite of his hot dog. “Do you ever stop eating?”

Calvin smiles crookedly. “Go out of the box and down to the ground floor. You’ll be on the fifty-yard line. They’re in warm-ups right now but hurry up or you’ll miss him…go. We’ll watch Sam.”

Good thing I’m wearing comfortable flats. I follow my brother’s instructions and step onto the edge of the field, flash my badge to the security officers stationed at the entrance.

I could be dead right now. I could be.

By the Grace of God, I turned the steering wheel to the right. The car spun in a one-hundred-and-seventy-degree circle, missing the pileup by inches. I hit the guardrail with the back end of the Explorer.

The EMT that treated my back ache said if I had turned the wheel a fraction more, I would’ve been dead. I would’ve hit the guardrail head-on, possibly gone over, and landed on the underpass below. Ten injured. One fatality. I have a monster headache. My back feels like it’s been through a meat grinder. Otherwise I’m in one piece.

So I’m not dead. And time has not run out. Not yet at least.

Grant is warming up with his Bose headphones on. I do jumping jacks to get his attention. Those things really are noise-canceling. Finally spotting me, a huge grin spreads across his face and he gets up and jogs over. Holy crow. He’s breathtakingly beautiful in all that compression clothing. Mercy. I have to remember that I came down here with a purpose.

He walks right up and, without even breaking stride, kisses me possessively. Hands on my face, claiming my mouth like he owns it––and he does. All of me. Then he wraps his arms around my waist and picks me up.