Velva Jean Learns to Fly Read Online Free

got a spare?”
    I shook my head. Johnny Clay or Danny Deal must have used it long ago and never replaced it, if the truck had even come with one in the first place. Why hadn’t I thought to get a spare? In all my planning and checking of oil and lights and brakes, I never once considered it.
    He said, “I don’t think ours would last you very long.” We all looked at the car and the tires, which were smaller than the tires on the truck.
     
    We drove for a mile before we saw a service station. It rose up along the side of the road, the only building except for a couple of tiny houses set off nearby. I had put my shoes back on, and now I wiggled my toes, which felt boxed up and hot.
    Franklin Dover got out and talked to the station attendant, gesturing with his hands so that I knew he was describing my truck and what was needed. Mrs. Dover and I sat in silence. At some point she said, “You need to be careful out there.” She was looking straight ahead, through the window, out at the trees and the road.
    “Ma’am?”
    She said, “You probably got folks worrying about you.” It was a question.
    “Yes.”
    There was a fat little smack against the windshield. And another. Rain.
    She said, “Well, make them worry as little as you can. There are hitchhikers and strangers and all sorts of hooligans who might not be so kind. You let your folks know you’re safe by staying safe.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    It started raining harder—an end-of-summer storm, the kind that came in fast and left fast, washing everything clean.
    We sat, not talking, the rest of the time we waited. Mr. Dover came over to the car and tapped on the window. Mrs. Dover leaned over me to roll it down. He said, “It’ll be seven dollars for the tire.”
    I opened my coin purse and counted the money. He turned around and handed it to the attendant, and then I watched the attendant count my money that I’d worked so hard for. I thought, I should buy a spare tire while I’m at it. What if another tire goes flat? What if I’m out there on the road, all by myself, far away from a service station or anyone that can help me, and something goes wrong? Seven dollars was a lot of money. If I handed over seven more dollars for another tire, I might as well just hand over my entire life savings.
    Then I thought, Dammit! I can take care of this myself. And as I thought it, I suddenly believed it. I could take care of it myself. Hadn’t I been doing everything myself for the past few months? Not just the cooking and the cleaning and the looking after my husband’s daddy and my own husband, but teaching myself how to drive and how to learn an engine, and writing songs and even recording two of them. When Harley nearly died in the Terrible Creek train wreck and then stopped his preaching, it was me that kept us fed, with help from his daddy, and it was me that had to get Harley up off the settee and make him start working again.
    I thought: I need to get out of this car. I need to get back to my truck. I am going to change that tire.
    I looked in the side mirror and back down the road we’d just driven. You couldn’t see the truck anymore but it was back there, and suddenly I was desperate to get to it. In my head I heard a voice—faraway but firm: “I need to do this on my own.” And when I heard it, I felt the truth of it down in my bones. I didn’t need Harley or anyone else to help me change a tire. I could do it myself.
    I opened the car door. Mrs. Dover turned to look at me. I got out and shut the door and leaned in the open window. I said, “Thank you, ma’am. Y’all have been awful kind.”
    Then I turned to Mr. Dover and said, “If it’s all the same, I’ll be taking my tire. I’ve troubled you enough, and I can take care of this from here on out.”
    The attendant said, “Looky here, you need a jack and a lug wrench?”
    I wasn’t about to tell him that I didn’t know what either of those things was. “No, sir,” I said. “I do