Chapter Fifty Nine - Highway Ends - Local Roads Only
From the first day of 1969, life seemed to pick up speed for me. In fact, there were times when I felt I was riding a runaway amusement ride which had no attendant, no brakes and no governor. Time simply flew and circumstances shot up to complicate my life at every turn.
Sunday, the 5th of January began to develop complications on the ride down to the family farm for Wil's and my 'good luck' lunch with the family. Lucille, Sandy, Matt and I all planned on going, but only Sandy and Matt would be returning to the ranch that afternoon. I was leaving from the home farm with Wil, taking his new truck to Olds to enter our respective courses. Lucille was going to go directly from the lunch to work a shift at the hospital. Both Sandy and Lucille insisted on driving their own vehicles, so since Matt had been brought out by his brothers in their monster truck, I felt the road would be open enough to be no problem. However, I was surprised when Lucille asked me to ride with her, leaving Matt to ride with Sandy.
Once we were underway, I asked if there was a reason and was surprised at Lucille's response.
"Yeah, there is." She snapped. "Matt has a huge crush on me and it can be a pain in the ass. I'd rather not be alone with him right now. Not after New Years."
"What happened on New Years, other than Matt getting sick?"
"Well, after helping him clean up after he barfed over the porch rail, I was helping him back to bed. He pulled me into bed with him and was damn insistent. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but he's bloody strong and I'm not nearly as big as he is." She sighed. "If you're wondering, he didn't rape me, but he came damn close. The problem is that he doesn't want to take no for an answer. Don't worry though, I don't want you to get involved. I'll handle it my way."
"I can't do that Lucille and you know it." I sighed. "First of all, Sandy is going to be alone with him on the ranch. They might even be snowed in for weeks at a time. If he tried to force you, what makes you think he won't do the same thing to Sandy?"
"He has no attraction to Sandy."
"Rape has nothing to do with attraction. It's about conquest and control." I growled. "Even I know that much."
"That's why Sandy is safe and I'm not. Sandy reminds him of his father. I'm the one who reminds him of his mother."
"What has that got to do with it?"
"It's the way he was raised. His father insisted on complete control of the family, bossing everyone around. His mother was subservient and gave in to his old man. For some reason Matt thinks I'm subservient, while Sandy is strong. When you guys were walking around the farm this morning, I spoke to Sandy about it and she isn't worried. She said if he ever forced her in any way, she'd cut off his balls and feed them to the old sow, while forcing him to watch. In fact, she asked me to arrange for you to ride with me in order to be alone with him. She plans to tell him the consequences of him harming either of us in any way."
"Shit, even that worries me. What happens if he loses his temper while they're driving down to the farm?"
"Don't worry about it. I've heard how her mother always bossed that family, but let her father think he had control. A few months alone with Sandy will do Matt a lot of good."
"Hmm, maybe." I grunted. "It still worries me though. Just the idea that she's going to be alone with someone that attacked you, scares me silly."
"Chris, wake up and smell the roses. That woman only gives way to you. Every other man that Sandy meets takes a back seat and if he doesn't, she mentally slaps him around until he behaves. I just wish I was a bit more like that."
"Well, aside from that, there's the deal about the lease that Matt and his brothers want to have. Now I'm not sure if I want them living that close to us."
"I'd advise you to wait and see how things fall out over the next few weeks. You and Wil both intend to be home in the next week or two and you can still talk to Sandy before you leave. Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything, but I didn't want this taking you by surprise either."
"Actually, I wish you'd said something before. I might have been able to make some other arrangements."
"Well, you might talk to your mother. I spoke to her the other day in the hospital and from what she said, I think she has something in mind."
"Well, just having her know about it is a relief. I wasn't looking forward to talking to her and Dad about it, but I knew that I'd have to. Now I can just ask their opinions."
"Yeah, they'll have some." Lucille snorted. "I like your folks a lot. I wish mine had been more like them, but if they had been, I might not be here."
The conversation drifted to other subjects then, but after we were at the farm, I managed to talk to both Mom and Dad. They had an idea all right. Since Wil was heading to Olds at the same time I was, Corinna was going to stay with Sandy and Matt at the ranch. Not only that, but the first day she was there, Corinna was going to spin a yarn about being almost date raped when she was younger, and that she now carried a pistol all the time. Then she was going to take Sandy outside and set up a target to teach Sandy how to shoot.
I hadn't even known Corinna had a pistol, let alone that she knew how to shoot one. Mom wised me up about that in a hurry. It was actually Carissa who had been almost date raped when she was sixteen and it had been her father who had bought both of them pistols and taught them how to shoot with them. Dad had seen them shoot and he said he was very impressed, but was surprised that I hadn't heard about them having pistols and knowing how to use them.
All I could do was shake my head. There were so many things going on around me in other people's lives that I was unaware of that I felt lost. Then I calmed down and realized that there was no reason for me to know every detail of everyone else's life.
When we sat down at the table for lunch, I noticed that everyone seemed quite relaxed, with the exception of Matt. He seemed to be watching Lucille surreptitiously, but if he happened to see Sandy looking at him, he actually blanched. I decided then that I had to speak to him before I left for Olds.
I had the opportunity shortly after lunch when the two of us went with Dad to look over the new machine shed. Even I was surprised to see a small target range set up on the open side, complete with a sandbag and steel backstop. I knew then it was a setup, but I played along.
"Gee Dad, who's taken up serious shooting? Are you or Wil planning to compete again?"
"No, Corinna didn't want to get too badly out of practise, so we set this up for her and the other gals. It's funny, after she told your Mom about that date rape thing that almost happened to her, even Liz has been out here once in a while." He shook his head. "It's strange all those years we were shooting and she said she wasn't interested, but have Corinna tell her about almost being forced to have sex and she suddenly is. She even had me buy her a brand-new pistol, but she says she wants new targets as well."
"New targets, what sort of targets?"
"She wants full figure targets with the bullseye centred on the crotch." He snorted. "She says a rapist should have his balls shot off and she wants to be ready, just in case she ever needs to use her new skill."
I just laughed, but I don't think Matt found the idea funny and when I saw the look on his face, I knew I didn't have to say anything else to him. I think about then he realized that the whole family knew what had happened between him and Lucille. Actually, I realized that I'd probably been the last person who'd been told about it, and other than him, I'd been the last to hear about the handgun practise the women were doing. Perhaps that was a good thing, after all, advertising something like that might not be the best way to impress some folks. Besides, the only person that might need to know about the threat that the women posed was now aware of the risks any adverse action could precipitate.
With that in mind, I changed the subject, asking Dad if he didn't think the whole building wasn't a bit fancy, considering what it was used for. He didn't think so, in fact he told me that he thought it would save the farm money because he could work on all the tools and equipment during inclement weather. That was on top of the damage that was prevented from happening because everything was stored inside. I could see his point, and we were discussing it as we went back to the house. Even Wil got into it with us when we got back inside. In fact we even talked about it as Wil and I drove to Olds. By the time we got to the apartment where we were staying, I was so convinced by their arguments that I decided we needed a large equipment shed at the ranch as well.
After a couple of quick calls home to let everyone know we were okay, both Wil and I found our beds and soon were sawing logs. I was extremely glad the next day that I had gotten a decent night's sleep, because the two courses I was taking were going to be tough.
Animal husbandry dealt with all forms of care for farm animals, from feeding and cleaning to minor veterinary care and the school had arranged for it to tie in with a course on farm equipment maintenance. For three days of the week, I'd spend an hour and a half taking lectures and two hours doing actual hands-on care of the animals, then I'd move on to work with machinery for the rest of the day. On the fourth day, I'd still have the lecture, but that day I'd spend six hours looking after the animals. The fifth day was similar to the fourth, but after the animal husbandry lecture, I'd be working on equipment for the longer period of time.
The lectures weren't a sinecure either. I had to be prepared to take notes, do research and write reports. As well, since what we were taking were virtually two cram courses, all of us taking it found that we had virtually no time to spare during class hours. The actual hands on segment of both courses was far easier for me to handle since I'd been around animals all my life, and I found the mechanical course to be a snap. I was used to caring for and repairing all kinds of equipment. On top of that, I'd worked with Tom and George so much that tools just seemed to do what I wanted them to do.
In fact, by the Friday afternoon of the first week, I was already working on mechanical maintenance projects that had been planned for the next week. Perhaps that's why the instructor just pointed at the door when I wanted to leave a couple of hours early that day. Since Wil had gotten off early as well, we headed for home around two in the afternoon.
I was wiped out by the time we got home, but I was interested in seeing how things had gone while I was away. Mostly, I was worried about the situation between Matt and the women folk, but it turned out that there had been no problems in any way. Well, none except for the fact that Matt approached me at the first opportunity and asked if it would be okay for him to have his brothers come get him, so he could spend some time in town.
Since Wil had driven me all the way to the ranch in order to be able to pick up Corinna, it wasn't long before I and Sandy were home alone. She was quite excited to make sure I knew I was welcome back, so I was very glad that Matt had cared for the animals before he left. We sat down to eat late that night and I phoned home to talk to Mom and Dad, then Sandy and I lazed the evening away in front of the fire, before climbing into bed earlier than I expected.
To my surprise, Sandy insisted on doing the chores with me the next morning, but when we were leaving the barn, I could see why. Lucille's car was parked in the yard and when we went inside, she was cooking breakfast. In fact over the weekend, several people showed up for a short visit. Then it was Sunday afternoon and time for Wil and me to head back to school.
That weekend was typical for most of the winter, at least for those weekends we were able to go home. Wil and I would rush home on Friday night and try to get caught up on necessary business, then we'd head back late on Sunday. It was busy, in fact it was hectic, and both of us felt we were under a lot of pressure, but we managed to pull it off. Both Wil and I concentrated on our courses as much as we could and both of us managed to finish our studies with high grades.
Meanwhile, Sandy and Matt stayed on the ranch all winter, but Lucille visited on many of her days off. When her free time coincided with my weekends home, it was great. Matt always seemed to need to go to town to help his brothers handle a renovation job every weekend. He told me privately it was to give us some privacy, but I've always felt he was both embarrassed and envious of the closeness between Sandy, Lucille and me. I know he carried a torch for Lucille, but he never again showed the pushy side of himself.
I think Matt was tremendously relieved when mid-April came along and the land was dry enough to start building on the lease that he and his brothers had taken out with me. They built right on the corner of the municipal road and the ranch's access road. Carissa and Jackie decided to lease the ten acres that sat on the other side of the access road, and had a separate cabin and barn built there. To anyone driving by on the municipal road, it looked like our access road was their mutual driveway. That suited me just fine, because it effectively gave the ranch even more privacy than we'd had before.
By the time Wil and I came home for the summer, Corinna and Carissa had both finished their short courses on accounting. Meanwhile Tom, George, Beth, Jess and Jean had finished grade eleven, while Jackie and Jasmine were finished grade ten. We held off on a celebration for two weeks though. At the end of that time, the two cabins weren't quite finished, but both of them were livable, so the boys planned on finishing the last details in the evenings and on the weekends. It was only after Carissa and Jackie moved into one cabin and the McAdam brothers moved into the other that we partied. Only this time, Lucille and I made sure no one spiked the punch bowl.
That summer, Matt, John and I worked like slaves from early morning until late at night for five days every week. I insisted that on two days of every week we'd only handle essential jobs. In fact, between the three of us, we alternated doing the chores on the weekends so two weekends out of three, each of us had two days completely work free, unless an emergency cropped up. Of course nature provided us with a few of those, but the three of us handled them all relatively easily.
Early in the year, even before I was finished school in Olds, Matt and I had driven to Bowden on a Saturday and had picked up a thousand small caragana plants. When we got home Sandy and the three of us guys spent three weekends planting them so that they would grow to become windbreaks. We laid them out parallel to the roadway, both on the hill above the access road to the ranch and in other areas along the road where drifting had been bad the winter before.
Early in the summer, I bought an old two-ton Ford truck for hauling heavy or bulky loads around the ranch. I also bought a thousand-gallon tank that a service station had used for underground gasoline storage. I had the tank steamed out, then rigged it on a skid that I could mount inside the box of the old Ford. Every few days, all summer long, Sandy would fill that tank at the creek, using a gasoline-powered pump, then she'd drive up the hill and water those darn caragana bushes. Although it was an exceptionally dry summer, she kept almost all of those plants alive.
That summer I rented an old backhoe from Charlie Engels. Then with Matt, John and me taking turns on the bulldozer and the backhoe, we ditched and redid the grades of the whole access road. We started at the bridge across the creek and went all the way up the hill to the utility road that the Hydro Company had redone. That still left us with what was basically a dirt road, but now, it had drainage and since the subsoil that we'd used for grading was relatively sandy, it didn't get slippery when it was wet.
On top of the road work, the four of us living on the ranch during the two months of summer break from classes, built an equipment shed and a new pole barn for the horses, as well as another corral for the cattle. We also did all the regular farm work, including the haying and fencing that needed to be done. In other words it was a busy summer.
However, every Sunday that we weren't rained out, Car 54 was on the track and racing. A few times it was questionable whether we could be there or not, but we managed. You see, most of the time I was able to steer clear of him, but Gary Wagner and I 'accidentally' tangled twice. In each case Car 54 got badly damaged.
Once, he managed to squeeze Car 54 between his car and the concrete wall that ran in front of the stands. When I countered by steering into him, then braking hard, he suddenly found himself partially in front of me with his front end diving for the wall. Unfortunately, my foot 'accidentally' slipped off the brake peddle and hit the accelerator. By the time I corrected my mistake and got stopped, his car was on its lid, facing the stands.
During the following week, we had to beat out the panels on both sides of the car and mount replacement fenders, grill and hood. Mechanically, we had to straighten the frame, redo the steering, replace the radiator and replace the engine. The cast iron block of the engine had been shattered when the water pump shaft was driven back into the first of the cylinders. However, we were back on the track with a good-looking car the next weekend. Unfortunately, Gary didn't make it out to the races that week, but he was there as a spectator and he gave me a rough time after the races.
However, the weekend following that, which happened to be the last race we planned to run that year, Gary was back and over the week, his attitude had deteriorated, he was fuming. Clarence tried to calm him down and I even tried to talk to him, but he ignored both of us. So, once the race got started and he managed to pass me, I thought I'd just let him go. We were about three laps into the main when things went hairy. I was probably about forty or fifty feet behind Gary and both of us were rounding three-four corner, coming up on the straightaway before the stands. We were passing on the outside of a slower car at that point and I thought I saw Gary's car seem to twitch sideways slightly. Then he was on the straightaway and accelerating hard, so I hit the gas.
That's when all hell broke loose.
Suddenly the back end of Gary's car was lifting up in the air and the car was stopping dead in its tracks. I hit the brakes, but it didn't do one bit of good. Nose down and in an uncontrollable four wheel slide, Car 54 was headed right under Gary's car, but as it did, I realized what had happened. Somehow his drive shaft had broken free and dropped down, then dug into the dirt track. The rear end of his car had tried to pole-vault using that solid section of steel tubing as the pole. I had no time to think or do anything. All I could do was hang on.
Then the guy that we'd been passing hit my right rear fender and spun my car. Car 54 hit the rear wheels, then the drive shaft of Gary's car, kicking it loose, then it spun away. Suddenly I was moving around and sideways at the same time. In fact, it felt almost as if the car was going to roll onto its side, then it was skidding backwards and facing Clarence, who tried to miss the accident on the inside of the track. Somehow I had the presence of mind to keep the clutch pressed down and release the brakes, but Clarence's car still struck mine, nose to nose and I got shunted down the track like a billiard ball. For some reason, I had enough presence of mind to slam on the brakes then, skidding to a halt.
I was left facing backward along the track, staring at the biggest mess I've ever seen on a small dirt track. It was blocked from one side to the other. The car that hit my rear end had also struck the rear end of Gary's car, which had somehow ended up sitting tail high, on the trunk of Clarence's car. Meanwhile Gary's front end was tight against the car that he and I had been passing, jamming it against the concrete wall. As well, two more cars hadn't been able to stop in time, so they piled into the resultant wreck. One of them was sitting against the outside wall and against the car that had hit me, and then Gary. Meanwhile the other car had hit Clarence from the rear and had spun crosswise, completely blocking the rest of the track.
That's when I saw smoke coming from the front end of Gary's car and realized it might be on fire. It felt to me like it took forever to grab my fire extinguisher, get out my window, then run to the wreck. Yet somehow, I was the first one there. The hood was sprung, so I grabbed the edge and lifted it up, then held it with one hand as I triggered the fire extinguisher with the other, pointing it at the source of the smoke.
I suppose I emptied the fire extinguisher, but I don't remember for sure. Things were simply too hectic right then to recall details. The next thing I do remember is seeing that there were people all over the wreckage and feeling myself being led away. Tom led me back to Car 54 and I heard the engine running. I hadn't even shut it off.
"After all that, the damn thing still runs." Tom said quietly. "In fact, it even looks like it could still race."
"Not with me driving, at least not today!" I said as unemotionally as I could, then reached in through the window to shut the engine off.
I suppose that day was when I lost much of my drive and ambition to win stock car races. Somehow the vision of Gary's bumper coming at me just above eye level stayed with me for years. Between that and the imprint of his tire tread on the hood of my car, along with a black tire scuff on the roof edge, just above the steering wheel, made me a little more cautious on the track. On top of that, Car 54 had been heavily damaged and since it was the last race we planned to be in that year, we didn't hurry to get to the repairs done on it either.
It wasn't as if we didn't race the next year, but by that time Tom and the mechanics at Frank Dolens' shop had literally built up a whole new car. It was still numbered 54, and still looked the same, but it didn't feel the same to me. Racing simply became less important because my life became more complicated.
By the fall of that year, Matt and John had decided they wanted to be farm or ranch workers, so John enrolled in the full course at Olds. Matt planned to take the same two accelerated courses that I'd taken the year before and would start after Christmas break. Meanwhile, I was taking two other courses that ended then. By doing that we had the duties on the ranch covered and yet we were all able to improve our educations. During that winter, after the New Year, Sandy and I both took a business management course by correspondence.
That was another year when life took a few more detours. In fact, that was a pivotal year for me in many ways.
On New Years Day, Lucille announced that she was going back to school in Calgary for the rest of the winter in order to upgrade her nurse's training. She left on Sunday, the 4th of January and would be away for six months.
On April the 16th, at the age of 83, Grampa Bender had a major heart attack. The doctors and nurses in the hospital were unable to save him. We buried him in the family plot at the base of the upper escarpment on the 20th of April, choosing a Saturday so that anyone who worked during the week could still attend the service. Not one of our family members from Calgary attended that funeral, yet there were close to a thousand people there.
Amongst all the pain and sorrow of Grampa Bender's passing, Lucille almost fell apart. She took his death the hardest of all of us, since she felt she should have been at his bedside to help. No one could seem to console her until Jerry Dolens appeared out of nowhere and took her aside to speak to her. After that, the two of them began to spend more and more time together, with Jerry driving to Calgary almost every weekend. The day after she graduated from her course, they announced that they were getting married and named a date in August. Dad was as proud as a real father when she asked him to walk her down the aisle.
I think everyone, including Sandy, expected me to take that announcement harder than I did. To be honest, two years before I'd seen a friendship developing between them, ever since Jerry had talked his father into letting Lucille drive out to the ranch with the pickup Frank wanted to sell me. In fact, having Lucille marry someone from town simplified my life and left me with a situation that felt much more reasonable. I was actually the first person to grin, then offer Lucille and Jerry my sincere congratulations.
The next day, I left John in charge of chores and drove to Calgary with Sandy. I hadn't told her where we were going and when we walked into 'Birks' jewellery store, the look on her face was priceless. I remember the conversation we had after I'd steered her toward the counter where engagement rings were sold.
She turned and stared at me. "Are you asking me to wear your ring?"
"Well, I was thinking I'd get your opinion." I grinned. "After all, you've been suggesting this for a couple of years or more."
"Why, is this just because Lucille is going to get married? I thought you were going to wait until you were twenty-one."
"Well, I was, but all my girl friends have all been disappearing into the sunset. I thought if I offered you a ring as a promise, you might stick around. Besides, I think you've earned it and I always pay my debts."
"Asshole!" She snapped loudly, astounding the salesman that had come to the counter, then I got swarmed.
After I received a kiss that definitely said yes, she astounded me by insisting that all she wanted was a plain silver band.
When we got back home, a lot of people didn't even notice the ring and she insisted on keeping it quiet, not allowing me to make any announcement. I found out later that she felt if we did, it would take away some of the lustre of Lucille's engagement. Besides, she insisted that a wedding ceremony wasn't essential for us, that she already felt married. Then she proved it by getting pregnant.
Okay, let's be honest. She didn't get pregnant intentionally; after all, she was taking her birth control pills quite faithfully each and every day. However, she'd been helping me to rebuild the old pig sty and she'd accidentally stepped on a rusty nail. We'd taken her to the doctor and he'd given both of us tetanus shots. Then he'd had to put Sandy on a course of antibiotics a week later because an infection had shown up in the wound on her foot. Her foot cleared up fine, but what we didn't realize at the time was that some antibiotics counteract the effects of the birth control pill. So because of one rusty nail, Sandy and I were going to become parents.
We decided that wasn't really a bad thing, but tried to keep the news of our upcoming family addition to those people we felt closest to, insisting that it be kept quiet. I did try to convince her to marry me though, until Mom took me aside one day and told me to lay off with the pressure. Mom felt that if I pushed too hard, Sandy would rebel and Mom worried that it might hurt our relationship. So I backed off.
Of course, life went on in other ways too. Mile High Ranch was doing well, with livestock increases all around. Grampa Bender's whiteface cattle were all gone, replaced by purebred polled Shorthorns. While not all of our horses were purebreds, we were registered breeders of purebred Quarter Horses. And wonder of wonder, we'd hit relatively high prices when we'd sold our hay crop for three years running, ever since I'd started looking after Mile High Ranch.
With everything on the farm relatively under control, Sandy convinced me that I should take advantage of that scholarship for electronics training that year. So, Tom, George and I moved into an apartment in Calgary that fall to go to technical school. George and I were each taking an electronics course and Tom was taking one on diesel mechanics. We even rebuilt and moved Car 54 down to Calgary and raced her a few times, but I simply was nowhere near as good a driver on a paved track as I had been on dirt.
I was home for several weekends, but Sunday, October the 13th, I left before noon so that I could be in Calgary soon enough to drive in the final official stock car race of the year. I didn't win, I didn't even place, but it didn't worry me. I'd decided that it was my final race anyway. I was surprised when I called the ranch and didn't get an answer, but I assumed that Sandy and John were visiting relatives or friends.
However, I was wakened at one the following morning by a phone call from Lucille. Sandy had been rushed to the hospital late the afternoon before after a fall from the barn loft. By the time I arrived home that day, she'd lost the fetus and her doctor was worried about her health. Two days later, she passed away of complications from the fall and resulting miscarriage.
The day after her funeral, I drove to Calgary, loaded Car 54 onto her trailer and drove to the auto-wrecker's. Then I insisted on watching as they put the car through the crusher. Sandy had been at my side the first day I'd seen that car and I felt that in a way, I'd driven it for her. I didn't want it around to remind me of the excitement she'd gotten out of seeing me race. I think in a way I also felt guilty that I'd been racing when Sandy had fallen and injured herself.
After watching the car get crushed, I drove to the apartment where Tom, George and I had been living, packed my things, then went to the technical school and withdrew from the electronics course. After that, I went home to the ranch and did my best to become a hermit for several months. Of course with the friends and family that I had, it was difficult to do, but after a while they all caught on to the fact that I just wanted to be alone for a while.
Jess and Jean had started taking nursing training at the same time as I'd started in electronics, but just like me, after Sandy died, they quit and moved home. Their relationship with Tom had always been slightly rocky, but for some reason, having them quit their training and move home finished it off. I think Tom simply gave up.
Things might have stayed like that if I hadn't decided one morning that I needed to get rid of all of the various women's possessions that were around the cabin. Dreading the idea, but forcing myself to act, I call Jess and Jean's number, then was surprised when Lucille answered. When I told her why I'd called, she said she'd get someone to help me and hung up. I just stared at the phone for a moment, then decided Lucille was probably a darn good person to have involved.
Still, I didn't expect what happened because of that call.
Mom and Beth showed up first and the moment they walked in the door, they started to give me a rough time about the state of the kitchen. Then Mom moved closer to give me a hug. A few seconds later, I felt like a ten-year-old kid as she chased me off to have a shower and change my clothes. I'd thought closing my bedroom door would give me some privacy, but by the time I'd showered and shaved, someone had hung clean towels and clothing on a hook by the bathroom door. I could hear the sound of a vacuum in my bedroom as I dried off and got dressed. However, no one was there when I stepped out of the bathroom, even though my bed had been made up and all my dirty laundry, that I'd been throwing in one corner of the bedroom, had disappeared. The vacuum was now in the hallway with Jasmine wielding it and as I stepped out of my bedroom, Aunt Alice appeared at the doorway of another upstairs bedroom.
"Have you been living in the kitchen and your bedroom?" She asked me bluntly. "The rest of the rooms in the house look dusty, but untouched and unused."
"Mostly." I grunted. "My office sometimes."
"Hmmph, damn fool, just like Grampa Toby used to be. You look after all your animals like they were your kids, but you can't look after yourself." She growled, then disappeared again.
I wandered downstairs and saw Beth dusting the mantle. She just frowned at me, then pointed to the kitchen before going back to dusting. I sighed deeply and went to see what Mom wanted to say. I knew it wasn't going to be pleasant.
It wasn't either, first she ripped me up and down for living like a tramp and not cleaning up, but then she hugged me to let me know that she still loved me. After that, she sent me out to the barns to see Dad and Wil. Neither of them said much, but we walked around and checked out the condition of everything and Dad nodded, giving his seal of approval to the fact that I'd cared for the animals well. Then we headed back to the cabin.
"It's too damn big now." I said as I looked at the enlarged cabin.
"It probably is, for just one man, but you could easily have help to care for it." Dad said quietly.
"I don't really want company though." I sighed heavily.
"Well, between the house and the ranch, there's too much here for one person to do."
"Grampa Bender did okay."
"Toby didn't have nearly as many animals or near as big a house, Chris."
"I can cut back and close up part of the house." I said stubbornly.
"There's a better solution." Wil offered, speaking for the first time. "But, I don't have time to argue with you right now. Corinna wants to go to town and see the doctor. So why don't you ask Mom about her idea. Are you coming with me, Dad?"
"I might as well. Chris doesn't need our help." Dad slapped me on the back, then called back over his shoulder as they walked to Wil's pickup. "Liz does have an idea that might help you out, Chris. At least talking to her about it would be a good idea."
So, sighing heavily, I went back inside. Mom must have been watching, because she handed me a cup of coffee and a sandwich.
"Beth wants to wash this floor, so take that into the living room. I'll grab a cup for myself and join you." Mom didn't leave me any room for an argument.
"I hear you have an idea to try to help me out in some way, but I don't think there's much anyone can do that I want to hear about. I just want to be alone for a while, without people around to drive me nuts." I started as Mom came and sat down facing me.
"It's March 17th, Sandy died on October 16th. That's five months that you've hidden away from the world. You can't carry on like this forever. Sandy died and we all miss her, but we have to carry on and so do you. You're only nineteen years old and we won't let you give up on the world yet."
"Oh, Mom. I'm not suicidal."
"Well, thank goodness for that, but you know there are other people who are worse off than you are."
"Who do we know that's worse off.?" I snapped. "I lost the woman that I considered to be my wife and my unborn son."
"Well, you could start off with Jess and Jean. Inside of a couple of years, they lost their parents and all of the grownups of their family, because their uncle disowned them. They lost their sister, who was also a parental substitute. They lost their boyfriend. They lost an unborn nephew and they even feel that they lost you as a friend. They can't hide out as well as you can though, because their house is surrounded by other houses, all full of nosy neighbours who give them no peace. And you bitch because you think you have it bad."
"So, what am I supposed to do about it?"
"You could at least talk to them. Of all the people in the world there aren't any others who miss Sandy more than you three do. I think the three of you need to share that grief and get it out of your system."
"Well, I'll talk to them when they come to get Sandy's clothes and things." I conceded. "I'm not looking forward to that though."
"Well, I suppose that's better than nothing." Mom sighed, then stood and left me alone.
I suppose everyone told me goodbye before they left, but I was in such a blue funk right then that I didn't even realize they were gone until later in the day when I woke to the fact it was time to do the afternoon chores. I'd just finished when I saw Lucille's jeep coming into the yard.
"Shit, I don't want to see her and the twins at the same time." I groused aloud, but forced myself to walk toward the cabin and my visitors.
Lucille wasn't with them though. The twins had only borrowed her car.
However, that is neither here, nor there. The important part of that meeting was the fact that seconds after they had gotten out of the car, we were all holding each other and crying like babies. Eventually, we found ourselves still cuddled together hours later, but by then we were in the living room and on the couch. None of us remembered walking there. In fact, we didn't remember moving away from the car. By then we were all hungry and thirsty though, so we moved to the kitchen to find something to eat and drink.
Since it was dark by the time we'd eaten, it wasn't until Jess wanted something from the car and turned on the porch light to go outside that we realized that we were in the midst of a March norther. The snow was falling, the wind was blowing and we couldn't even see the car. Actually I don't think we could see five feet. We were living through a whiteout.
The twins and I looked at each other and realized that they weren't going back to town that night and that we'd better make some phone calls to let people know that we were all okay. I called Mom, then Carissa. Jean called Lucille. After the phone calls were made, we started a fire in the fireplace and sat on the couch again. Somehow, having cried for hours, it was easy to talk about the good times we'd had with Sandy.
I'm not sure who brought it up, but we got talking about the New Years Eve party when everyone had gotten drunk and one or the other of us suggested that we should all get feeling good that night. Not long later, we were each nursing a small glass of Grampa Bender's fixin's, mixed with a generous amount of orange juice to make it easier to handle. None of us really had that much to drink, but we must have had enough to lower our inhibitions. Perhaps that's why we all slept in the same bed that night.
As strange as it may seem, none of us had any regrets about where we found ourselves the next morning. In fact, when I went to have a shower, I wasn't really surprised to find both of them giggling and squirming against me only seconds after I had the shampoo on my hair. Of course I pretended to raise a fuss, but they didn't believe me for a moment. We teased and tickled and caressed, but that was as far as it went. I doubt if any of us would have felt comfortable if it had gone any further though.
The blizzard lasted for three days and it took two more to clear the roads out to Carissa and Jackie's place so we could get to the plowed municipal road. By then the twins had told me that their house in town felt almost haunted to them and that they weren't really comfortable living with all the memories of Sandy and their parents. I'm not certain who first suggested it, if I did or they did, but somehow we agreed that they should rent the house to Lucille and Jerry, then come out to the ranch and help me look after the place.
That's how the twins' clothes took the place of Sandy's in the bedroom closets about a week after the blizzard blew over. Strangely, or perhaps not, it was almost six months before I had any form of sex beyond kisses and caresses with either Jess or Jean. However, once that door had opened, it was like Pandora's Box; it couldn't be closed. Suddenly though, all of their clothes moved again. This time into the second bedroom's closets and one of them began to sleep there each night, but only one, and only for a night or two at a time. Meanwhile, the other twin would sleep at my side, usually seeking cuddles and comfort, but sometimes much more.
That hasn't changed much over the years. I'm not sure of their schedule. I haven't bothered puzzling it out, but they switch sleeping spots often and enthusiastically. They aren't as forgiving with other women as Sandy was though. Jess and Jean have declared my bed hostile territory to any other female body, much to Carissa and Jackie's annoyance.
Of course once the two of them had moved in with me, life began to creep back to near normalcy. Well, if you can call one man effectively having two wives as anything nearing normal. We do get some strange looks, but we've developed a relatively thick skin. Still, the official version of our household hierarchy for the outside world is that Jean is my wife, while Jess is an old maid who happens to live with us. And yes, I did marry Jean when we found that she was pregnant. But somehow, when Jess became pregnant just over a year later, she was suddenly wearing the wedding ring when anyone was around or we were away from the ranch. Sometimes it's very nice to have two wives, who just happen to be nearly identical twins, especially when you have no nearby neighbours who are snoopy.
We still miss Sandy, something fierce, but when Toby, our oldest, and Sandra, the next stair-step down, are being good and playing nicely with our twin boys, Josh and John, life feels pretty darn good. Of course once the youngest hellion, Elizabeth, is up and walking, that might change. She already seems to take after her two grandmothers, sweet and sassy one moment, but manipulative and bossy the next. Time will tell what each of them will do or become. It is a little confusing though particularly when all the kids say that both twins are their mom.
Now, before I ramble on too much longer about my family, I've read over what I've written and I think I've achieved my original goals. The story has covered how Car 54 came to be and the results of ownership of that hunk of metal and rubber. It has told of the friends that car brought me and even of the adversaries I met along the line, mentioned joint triumphs and personal tragedies, even boasted of loves found and mourned for lives lost. Then, it wandered far afield, telling peripheral details and happenings that were brought on by decisions made, simply because I had that old car in my life. Since this started out to be a yarn about a shy teenage kid with an old car, and before it becomes a tale of a middle-aged rancher and his family, I've decided to put away my pen and declare this narrative closed.