Working weekend

The man of the house had a long weekend. He made plans to work in his shop – after a trip to New Orleans. With ladder, rope and a couple hours, we helped move our son and his wife’s bed and desk from the second story of their old place to their apartment. After a Sunday picnic, we headed home.
West of Vicksburg, my husband spotted an old station wagon parked beside the road. A retiree probed the engine while his cat and yellow dog watched patiently from inside the wagon. They were headed to California to visit the man’s dying father. The man said he had fixed whatever was wrong.
As we drove off, my husband watched the station wagon in our rearview mirror. It gradually picked up speed, slowed and then pulled off the road.
We backed up and offered the man a ride to the nearest gas station. A mile down the road, we passed an old sedan beside the road. My husband promised, “If it’s there when we come back, we’ll stop.”
The retiree bought bottles of fluid for his car. He thanked us and left trailing a cloud of black smoke. We hoped he would make it to a service station in Vicksburg.
Down the road, the old sedan waited for us, sheltering a Monroe college sophomore with a tear-washed face.
I rolled down the window, “Can we help?”
She smeared mascara across her check, “I’ve been begging God for someone to stop. The car just quit while I was driving.” My man went to look at it while we talked.
“We’ve had our car break down with our four children along,” I told her. “Until we pushed the car, no one, not even the police, stopped. Since then, if we have time, we stop.”
My husband returned, “I can’t fix it. We’re headed to Monroe. Do you want a ride to your dorm? Tomorrow, someone can come back and help you with the car.”
She sniffed, nodded, gathered her books, snacks and clothes and climbed in.
Two miles down the road, the station wagon waited for us. It had not made it to Vicksburg. A three-legged, yellow lab, tied to the guard rail was drinking from a basin of water. The cat studied us from its perch on the back seat.
“I knew you’d be along,” he smiled. He didn’t want to go to Vicksburg for help. That was too long to leave his pets. He accepted a lift back to the gas station where he called a towing company. The college sophomore took time to call her mom. They cried together about the 300,000 mile car dying on the Interstate.
We settled in for the 90-minute drive to Monroe. Thirty miles later, another car waited on the side of the road. Two women. Flat tire. No spare. Help was expected within a few minutes. We drove on and didn’t see another stalled car. We left the co-ed at her dorm, drove home and collapsed in bed at midnight.
At 7 a.m. our son phoned. “Uh, Dad my computer crashed.” Between working on the computer and shopping with my dad, my husband didn’t do a thing in his shop, on his weekend off, but he sure did a lot of things for everyone else.