Eight miles out of Valley Center, on a country road in the middle of nowhere, a tire went flat. I asked Edmund to hold the flashlight for me while I unpacked the spare tire, jack, and lug wrench from the trunk. While I set the jack under the back bumper, he asked me to hand him the lug wrench. “Left rear?” he asked. “Yep,” I said. As I started jacking, I heard the hub cap pop off, and the sound of the wrench being fit over the first nut.

I jacked slowly. It was late, approaching midnight, and I was tired, but more than that, I was distracted by the stars. It was a cold, clear night, miles from any city, and the late December sky blazed with stars. God, there were lots of stars. You ever look at a beach and try to see just one grain of sand? You can’t do it, the grains don’t stand out single, they clump together, and all you see is beach. The sky that night was nothing like that. The stars were too many to count. Each stood out to be seen, crisp and bright, a single point of light.

“Elsa,” I called, “get outta the car and look at these stars!”
Continue reading “Getting Miss Elsa Home” →