My father-in-law's breathing grew more labored by the second. Without warning, his body pitched forward off the back seat and crumpled to the floor, limbs twitching involuntarily.
I slammed the horn over and over, desperate to get someone's attention, but no one paid me any mind.
Panic had me fumbling, useless. I fired off voice message after voice message to my wife.
"Dad is in my car! He's seriously ill, and I need to get him to the hospital. I am not joking with you!"
But Gretchen stayed silent.
Just when despair was closing in, the two-lane stretch suddenly widened into three lanes, and traffic began to flow. Off to the side, there was an exit ramp leading off the highway, and right beside it sat a hospital.
Hope surged through me. I wrenched the steering wheel toward the exit. But Cecil swung his truck over and planted it squarely alongside me, boxing me in.
No matter how I turned the wheel, it was useless. I was pinned in place.
His voice came through the speaker, dripping with mockery.
"Trying to run? Not a chance."
All I could do was watch the exit disappear behind me.
I pounded the steering wheel and blared the horn until my palms ached. Cecil only laughed louder.
When I twisted around to check on my father-in-law, he was lying motionless on the floor. Not a sound.
"Dad! Don't pass out on me. Hang on!"
I kept turning back, shouting at him, trying to pull him back to consciousness.
He didn't move. He didn't respond. I had no idea if he was alive or dead.
I hated them. Both of them.
If they hadn't boxed me in out of sheer spite, I would have made it to the hospital. The man who had given me everything wouldn't be lying there, hovering between life and death.
I rolled down my window, thrust my arm out, and pointed straight at Cecil in the truck beside me.
"Cecil, you son of a bitch! You're killing him!"
Cecil sat in the driver's seat and glanced toward my back seat. A flicker of surprise crossed his face.
Then it was replaced by pure, gleeful satisfaction.
His message came through a moment later.
"Ha! My own father never even slapped me, but you had the nerve to. Now your old man's dead, isn't he?"
"Karma. That's what this is. Karma!"
I freed one hand, steadied my phone, and snapped a photo of my father-in-law crumpled in the back seat. I sent it straight to my wife.
"Gretchen! Get it through your head. I am trying to get our father to a hospital. I am driving to save his life!"
Her expression on the screen was dark as a storm. She reached across her car, rummaging for something, then rolled down her window and extended her arm.
A steel wrench glinted in her fist.
I realized what she was about to do.
My heart seized. I screamed, frozen in place.
"Gretchen, no!"
The next instant, her fingers unclenched. The wrench hurtled through the air and slammed into my windshield.
A deafening crack.
The glass splintered into a massive spiderweb of fractures radiating from the point of impact.
I flinched and jerked the wheel. The left side of my car ground against the guardrail, showering sparks, the shriek of metal on metal lasting a full ten seconds before I finally snapped back to my senses.
I gripped the wheel with both hands and straightened the car out.
Gretchen's voice tore through the phone, raw with fury.
"You actually had the nerve to photoshop a picture to scare me?"
"Clarence, there is nothing between me and Cecil. I've told you a thousand times. Stop running to my father every time you have some petty grievance!"
"I warned you. My father has a bad heart. He can't handle your jealous, small-minded drama!"
The injustice burned through me. Her father had seen the photos she posted on her Instagram story, the ones of her looking far too cozy with Cecil. He knew we'd been fighting. That was why he'd come to see us quietly, to smooth things over.
A memory surfaced unbidden. Our wedding day. The aisle blanketed in flowers.
Gretchen had held my hand, eyes brimming with emotion, and spoken her vows to me.
"In this life, I will always stand by your side. I will always love you. I will never choose to hurt you."
