Pull Up to the Bumper, Baby

A version of this story has already found its way into my debut novel, Holding On, coming out this fall.

The names have changed, some of the details too — but the heart of it remains: a memory of exhaustion, rescue, and the kind of steadfast love that doesn’t need big speeches to be heard.

Launching Needle Drops gave me the excuse to finally tell it the way I lived it — a little messy, a little bracing, and full of the kind of loyalty that holds you steady even when you’re falling apart.

Pull Up to the Bumper, Baby

When I told my dad I wanted to drive to Skegness for the day, he looked at me like I was out of my mind.

It had only been a few weeks since my mum died. He was still raw, still trying to patch the edges of normal life back together. He told me to get the Mini serviced before the trip — a beige 1969 Cooper S, practically glowing with pride of ownership. I told him it didn’t need it. It had just been serviced when I bought it. I'd be fine.

We loaded into the car — me, Andy, Johnny, and Hicksy. Even though he was the smallest of us (he proved that when he showed us he could fit into the boot/trunk of the Mini, which was about the size of the space you get to stow your carry-on bag on a plane — but that, my friends, is another story), Hicksy got to sit up front, because I was still only a provisional driver and he was the only one who’d passed his test.

We wrestled with the gears through traffic, the longest drive I'd ever done, and by the time we rolled into Skeggy’s bracing air, I was already exhausted. We grabbed fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, fed pennies into slot machines, and pretended we weren’t cold as the wind knifed off the sea.

I suggested heading back early. I didn’t want to drive at night.

I turned the key.
A click.
Nothing.

At first, the others thought I was joking. We pushed, we checked the petrol, we waited and tried again. Nothing. Hours passed, and finally, I called my dad. I expected anger. A lecture. Maybe even a flat no.

Instead, all he said was: "Stay put, lad. I'll be there in a bit."

It took him three hours. By the time he arrived, it had started to rain. He must have gone and found a tow rope somewhere. We crammed into the cars: my friends with him, me with Hicksy, staring at his bumper like it was the only map we had. He’d told me: watch the back of my car, don’t brake too much.

As we set off, the rain started to drum harder, rattling across the roof in slow, uneven time, like a song you couldn't quite catch the beat to. Eighty-five slow miles, watching the back of his car, like it was the last lighthouse left standing.

When we finally made it home, he dropped me off first. I made him a cup of tea, set out a pork pie and a cheese and Branston sandwich, waiting for him to return from dropping off the others.

I kept apologizing. He pointed out — gently, because that’s who he was — that maybe I should have listened and gotten the car serviced. But he didn’t make me pay for it with shame. He could see I already understood.

I wasn’t just exhausted from the road. I'd been carrying the weight of those months too — the quiet grief that no journey could outrun.

I’d forgotten how steady he could be.

That night, stranded and tired and half-drowned by rain, he reminded me.
He just showed up.
Like he always did.