“I’m sure she’s fine,” Otis says as I toss another tool in the box.
I make a grunting sound, grabbing the rest of the tools and hanging them up next to the workbench.
“She said she was just running to town.”
“Five hours ago!” I shout without realizing how angry I am.
“Easy, Clay, no need to bust a gasket,” Otis tries to reassure me, but it’s no good.
She’s probably out there with her fiancé fucking in the backseat of her piece of shit car while on my dime. God, why am I so angry? I’ve told myself a hundred times she doesn’t belong to me. Yet, all I can do is pray she comes back.
What if I scared her off and she decided she didn’t want the job? I went to her room, and her stuff was still there. When I saw her taking a selfie, I knew she was doing it for him, and I got angry. I’m not used to having to control my emotions, so everything is raw on and on the surface.
When I feel something, I let everyone know it, but from the moment she stepped on the farm it’s all been a mess. Emotions are bubbling up, and instead of letting them out, I keep on pushing them back down. Today some of that exploded and it sent her running for the hills. Literally.
“Her car isn’t safe,” I say as I slam the drawer closed a little too roughly. “Why’d you let her take it?” It’s easier to blame Otis than to face my own shortcomings.
“Seriously? It’s her car, Clay. She’s not a prisoner.” It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him he’s wrong, but technically she doesn’t have to stay here.
“She was paid to live here.”
“Before you lose your cool with me and regret it, why don’t you think about why you’re really angry?”
I ignore him and grab my empty lunchbox. I never thanked her for it, but instead stomped in the house and fussed at her like she’d done something wrong. I sigh as I walk towards the house, promising to myself to fix this. Tonight.
“I’ll stick around until she gets back,” Otis calls from behind me, but I just wave my hand in response.
When I get to the house, I drop my stuff and look out the window. It’s almost dark, and she still isn’t back. I drove that car to the barn, so I know exactly how unreliable it is, and we’re out in the middle of nowhere. If she gets stuck on a country road, it’s a long walk in any direction to find help.
Without thinking it through, I grab the keys to my truck and my jacket. Temperatures drop fast out here at night, and if she didn’t take one she could be freezing. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing as I get in my truck and take off towards town. What if she’s just eating dinner with her fiancé and I show up looking like an asshole? I guess it wouldn’t be the first time I looked like that, but seeing disappointment in her eyes is something I don’t think I could stomach.
But what if she’s in trouble? The thought keeps tickling the back of my mind, and it’s the reason I’m turning on the long stretch of road between my farm and civilization. What if she’s in trouble and I’m not there to save her? I have to go look, even if it’s to just find a pot of disappointment at the end of her rainbow of sunshine.
I’m lost in thought on the pitch-black highway just as something catches the corner of my eye. I slam on my brakes and turn around to try and see, but I can’t spot anything right away. Sometimes deer run through this corn field, but I don’t think that’s what it is.
Following my instincts, I put the truck in reverse and back it up. As I do, I take out my flashlight from under my seat and shine it on the water ditch next to the road. To protect the crops from heavy rain, they have to dig out about five feet down on either side of the road and cars have been known to get stuck.
Just as I’m about to give up, my light shines over something light blue. I’m out of the truck before my next heartbeat and running towards the ditch.
“Dorothy! Dorothy!” I scream as I race to the edge. When I see the muddy vehicle turned on its side, I slide down and keep calling. “Dotty, are you in there? Dotty, answer me!”
I climb on the car, but I’m covered in mud now, and my hands are slipping. It’s pitch black out here with no moonlight anywhere to be found, and my flashlight is in a puddle on the ground. My eyes are slowly adjusting, but panic is threatening to take me under.
“Oh god, please, Dotty, answer me.” My hands slip on the door, but I finally get a grip on the handle and pull as hard as I can. Metal groans as I wrench the door open and bend it backwards to stay open. “Dotty!”
I look down and see her slumped to one side, the old seat buckle having blessedly held her in place. I grab my knife out of my pocket and in one quick slice free her from it.
“Dotty, baby, I got you,” I tell her, pulling her into my arms and carefully climbing down off the car. “It’s okay, you’re going to be okay.”
It’s too dark for me to see if she’s bleeding, and I probably shouldn’t have carried her out of the car, but I couldn't leave her there. An ambulance will take too long to reach her, and some of the guys who work on the farm are part-time paramedics for the volunteer fire department. If I hurry, I can get back before they’ve left for the day.
I get into my truck while holding Dotty in my lap. She’s so damn small and cold, I can’t think about what that might mean. In the cab of my truck I turn the light on, but I don’t have time do anything except pull my jacket over her and hug her close as I drive like hell.
“It’s going to be okay, Dotty. I promise everything will be okay. Just keep on breathing, baby. Just breathe.” I hope this is a promise I can keep.
The truck tires eat up gravel as I race down the road with the pedal on the floor. I can see the lights of the big house and barn ahead, and I know help is coming. I go straight for the barn and see the guys all milling around outside talking to one another at the end of the workday. Thank god they’re all so damn chatty as I start honking my horn.
“I got you, Dotty. Help is coming.” My tires screech and I stop the truck. The guys come running over. “Her car flipped in the ditch.”
It’s all I can get out before the guys take her from my arms, and I stand there helpless as they call for what they need. Four of the guys are in motion instantly with a back brace and a triage bag ready to go. Someone hands me my jacket, but all I can think about is putting it on her so she won’t be cold anymore.
“What’s her name?” Shane, one of the guys, asks me as he shines a light in her eyes.
“Dorothy,” I answer numbly, because I don’t know what else to do. Seeing her like this, unresponsive and in danger, I fall to my knees.
“Dorothy, we’re going to give you a shot. Stay with me, okay?” Shane tells her as another of the guys administers something in her vein.
After only a second, she blinks slowly and makes a groaning sound. I close my eyes and thank whatever guardian angel she has that she’s alive. She takes a few breaths, and the guys are asking her stuff, but I don’t hear any of it. All I can hear is the sound of my heartbeat in my ears because it’s beating for both of us right now.
The guys count down, and suddenly they’re moving the stretcher toward the house. I jump up off the ground and follow behind them, directing them into the house.
“Take her to the bedroom at the end, it’s got a bigger bed,” I call out, and the guys take her up the stairs. Shane walks over to me and puts a hand on my shoulder, and I prepare for the worst.
“She’s going to be okay.”
I stare at him, stunned, and he says it again. “She had a big bump on the head, but otherwise nothing else seems broken or hurt. She was lucky she was wearing her seatbelt.”
“How did you know?”
“The bruise on her shoulder.” He points to his collarbone. “That's what we like to see in accidents like hers.”
“What do I do?”
“Right now our biggest concern is a concussion, so a couple of the guys will hang by for a few hours to make sure she’s okay.”
“I can do it,” I say, but even as the words come out, I worry that I won’t be what she needs.
“If you can keep her awake and talking for a little while, then we can ask some questions to clear her of a concussion. But if she needs to go to Regional, it’s going to take an airlift a couple of hours. I think right now we wait and see, and if she needs to go in, we’ll get her there.”
“Okay,” is all I can manage because I’m not sure what other options I have.
“It’s going to be all right, Clay. She’s lucky you found her.”
I walk toward the stairs and think about what he said. I could feel something was wrong even before I got in the truck to go look for her. How did I know that? How did I know to stop at that exact spot in the road, because when I went back, I saw nothing. Why does it feel like I’m being pulled to her even now as I take the stairs two at a time?
Something about Dotty has awakened a part of me that I didn’t know was there. Maybe it never would have been there if she’d never come along. But the closer I get to her, the more my chest relaxes, and somehow I think beside her is exactly where I’m meant to be.