I drove.
The highway was quiet. Black Friday traffic had cleared by late afternoon. Everyone already where they needed to be. Shopping bags full. Ovens cooling.
Just me, Ruth, and 60 mi of Connecticut pavement.
Snow had started to fall. Light, the kind that doesn’t stick, but makes the air look silver.
The radio was on. Some news anchor running through Black Friday retail numbers. Normal things, easy things.
Ruth reached over and turned the volume down.
“You never told them what I said to you in the hospital.”
I glanced at her.
“No, that’s between us.”
“Can I say it again?”
I nodded.
She straightened in her seat as much as the wheelchair bound muscles would allow. She looked at the road ahead through the windshield, not at me, the way people do when they’re saying something they want to get exactly right.
“I said, ‘They will try to make you small. Don’t let them, but don’t become them either.’”
I kept driving. My eyes burned. The road blurred for a second, then cleared.
I spent seven years trying to honor both halves of that sentence. Be big, but don’t be cruel. Build, but don’t bulldo. Win, but don’t gloat. Stand tall, but don’t stand on anyone.
I think I did okay.
“You did more than okay, baby.”
Ruth settled back into her seat. She pulled the blanket higher over her lap.
“You did it clean.”
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