My hands went slick on the wheel.
I wanted to turn around. I didn’t.
A knock on the window made me jump.
Twenty miles in, my back tire blew.
I got onto the shoulder and just sat there, both hands locked on the wheel, crying so hard I could barely see. Not because of the tire. Because the road had me again.
A knock on the window made me jump.
An older man stood there in a worn coat and split boots, gray beard moving in the wind. He looked like somebody the road had kept.
I cracked the window.
He changed the tire without another question.
“You all right?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
He looked at the back of my car. “You got a spare?”
“Yes.”
“Pop the trunk.”
He changed the tire without another question. Fast. Steady. Like he had done it a thousand times.
I hadn’t told him my name.
I stood there hugging my arms and staring at his hands.
When he finished, he wiped them on a rag and looked at me with the saddest eyes I have ever seen.
Then he said, very gently, “Take care now, Margaret.”
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