“They were freezing.”
“Fair point.”
When we reached my parents’ house, everyone was already fighting over the kitchen.
Dad was carving the turkey while Mom complained that he was “attacking it.”
My sister had brought a pie she insisted was homemade despite the grocery-store label still stuck underneath.
Lila ate two dinner rolls before dinner officially started.
I never mentioned the couple on the highway.
It honestly didn’t seem important.
A week later, I learned they disagreed.
My mother was still shouting through the phone while I turned up the television.
The morning host was interviewing Howard and June.
A banner across the bottom of the screen read:
ELDERLY COUPLE SEARCHES FOR THANKSGIVING STRANGER.
I froze.
The reporter asked what had happened.
June described the flat tire, the cold, and how frightened she’d become as daylight started fading and car after car passed without stopping.
Then Howard said, “We were beginning to wonder if we’d be sitting there until dark. Then this young father pulled over.”
The screen changed.
There I was.
Someone had taken a photograph of me crouched beside the car with snow on my shoulders and a wrench in my hand.
“What the…”
“Derek!” Mom shouted through the speaker. “That’s you!”
“I can see that.”
Apparently June had taken two photos while I worked because their granddaughter had recently bought them a new phone and kept telling them to use the camera.
Then the station showed a short, shaky video.
I looked miserable in it.
My nose was red, my gloves were wet, and at one point I nearly dropped a lug nut.
Lila came into the kitchen carrying her backpack.
“Daddy, you’re on TV!”
“I noticed.”
She stared at the screen in complete amazement.
Then June looked directly into the camera.
“We never got his name. If he’s watching, we’d like him to know how grateful we are. We were on our way to see our family that day, and because of him, we got there safely.”
Howard leaned closer to the microphone.
“And we’d like to buy him dinner.”
I stood in my kitchen holding half a sandwich while Lila began jumping up and down.
“We’re famous!”
“We are absolutely not famous.”
“We’re TV famous.”
Mom was still on speaker.
“Call them.”
“Mom.”
“Call them.”
“It was a tire.”
“It was kindness, Derek. Stop acting embarrassed about it.”
That evening, mostly because Lila refused to stop asking, I contacted the television station.
Less than twenty minutes later, Howard called me.
