The sedan slid past my window and out of the mirror, and I said out loud, to the windshield, “Somebody will stop.”

At the exit sign, I took the ramp, went around the cloverleaf, and came back on the other side.

It cost me eleven minutes.

The phone on the passenger seat lit up with Gavin’s name.

Then a text: Where are you.

The gravel was loose, and my dress shoes were wrong for it.

Up close, she was older than she had looked from the road, seventy or so, and the coat was good wool with the collar turned under.

She wasn’t standing so much as leaning against the car and letting the car do the work.