Route 18 was wet and bright and full of people who didn’t want to be on it.

The Buick had 190,000 miles on it and a steering wheel that shivered at sixty-one, so I kept both hands at four and eight.

At the mile marker 14 sign, a dark sedan sat on the gravel with its hazards flashing and its driver’s door hanging open.

A woman in a navy coat stood beside it, one hand on the door frame and the other pressed flat against her chest.

I was doing sixty.