The Passenger

“Get in the car”, the driver leans across the passenger seat and opens the door for the woman crouching behind the shed. Mary had driven around the block twice and finally found her.

“Just drive me to the gas station. I need to get a cigarette. I need to think. I just want to get back to my kids.” The woman pressed back against the passenger seat trying to hide behind the frame of the car. Her dark hair pulled back into a low ponytail. Tears streak her cheeks.

Mary’s knuckles clutch the steering wheel she looks at her passenger and blows a strand of blond hair out of her face: “Do you need help?” Stupid question, she thinks. It is obvious she needs help. She tries again. “Do you want me to call the police?”

“Just drive me to the gas station.”

Mary had been weeding the strip of ground between the sidewalk and the street, pulling out bunches of grass and replacing it with two leafed squash plants and inter-planting the squash with cosmos, marigolds and zinnia starts. She imagined squash vines, clusters of flowers and the buzzing of bees in the boulevard. Crouched down she was almost completely obscured by the cars parked on the curb. Her hands dirty, her body starting to feel the hours of work, but content as she surveys her progress and revels in the details of the podcast playing through her headphones. The sound of the cars whizzing past muted.

She paused briefly, and looking around, momentarily startled by a sound that didn’t belong. She could see nothing out of the usual and resumed digging. Maybe she had imagined the sound the way she sometimes hears the phantoms cries of her children only to see them playing or sleeping. No. There it was again. She could not identify a source of the sound. It definitely sounded like someone crying. She lifted one of the ear phones and moved it behind her ear only half listening to the story and listening intently to the sounds on her street. She paused and peered out between the cars. She stopped the story entirely, pushed the headphones down to her neck and sits still waiting for the sound.

There it is. The source of the sound. On the other side of the street, a woman is moving between the parked cars and RVs. She appears in the middle of the street. She is sobbing, wide eyed, and now running between trailer homes and sheds, pausing to hide and pull out her cell phone.

Mary leans back on her heels, waits and watches. The woman hunkers down behind a shed and is monetarily lost from view. She reappears. She zigzags down the alley. Never moving far, trying to stay out of sight, without a destination and lost. Mary runs inside and grabs her keys. “I will be right back” she yells at her husband and kids. She offers now further explanation.

Now they are side by side in Mary’s car. Mary starts driving: “Do you want me to call the Police?”

“No!”

“Please don’t call the police. I just came down to visit my boyfriend. He was clean when we met, but started using again. I took his drugs and hid them in my purse.” She is hugging her purse against her chest and leans back even further, pushing herself into the seat. “He lives in those apartments. He has a gun. He is really depressed. He told me if I call the police he will shoot himself.” She peers out of the edge of the car window looking for something. “He has my car. I came for the weekend. I just want to get back home to my kids. I have four kids.”

Mary drives down the road. Her passenger quickly jerks her head around to keep her eyes on the apartment building as it moves behind them, scouring the half empty parking lot for her boyfriend, and keeping an eye on her car. When it is out of sight she collapses back against the seat.

“We met when I worked for a substance abuse hotline.” She laughs dryly. “I used to work for a substance abuse hotline. Look at me now.”

Mary says nothing. She knows this isn’t the moment for lectures, and should haves, but is at a loss of what the right thing is to say, so she drives

“He played football in high school. He is a big guy. He was doing so well. I thought I could help him. We fell in love.”

She looks glances over at Mary. “I’m not scared of him.”

Mary meets her eyes. They both know that isn’t true.

“I have to go back and get my car”, she says quietly to herself. “His brother came over to talk to him. My boyfriend was so unreasonable, his brother got angry and left. He don’t think he is going to hurt me. I just take me to the closest gas station. I need a cigarette. I need to think.” She lifts her hands to massage her temples.

The gas station is at the edge of the neighborhood. The on ramp to the interstate highway clearly visible from the parking lot. The name of the next large city under the arrow pointing east - one hundred and twenty three miles away. Mary parks the car, and both Mary and the woman stare at the sign. There is a distance of one hundred and twenty three miles between this gas station parking lot and the four children she is trying to get back to. The distance feel insurmountable.

“Look”, Mary says as the woman opens the door. “I live across the street from where I picked you up. You can come down the alley, and if I’m not still working in the garden, knock on my back door. He won’t be able to see you. We can help you get your car.”

The woman closes the door and leans into the window: “Thank you. I just need a cigarette”. She turns and walks into the gas station.

Dazed Mary drives home. She walks into the house returns the keys to the kitchen counter. “I’m back”, she hollers upstairs. She returns to the dirt, absentmindedly planting the remaining flower starts with her attention focused on the activity on her street. Waiting and watching she listens for a knock. It never comes.

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