Henderson joined us for breakfast.

He had lost his wife the year before and spent his days watching game shows because the television made his apartment feel less empty.

He spoke little until Maya asked whether he’d enjoyed his job.

“Forty years behind a steering wheel,” he said.

“I could tell you every pothole in this county.”

For the next hour he described schoolchildren, winter roads, and one extraordinary afternoon when a lost dog had ridden the entire route home.

The table laughed.