A Quiet Highway

I was drunk the night I stopped for a woman in the middle of the highway. It was after midnight. I had been drinking in town somewhere, I don’t remember where, probably at someone’s parents’ house or on a ditchbank just out of town. I was drunk, I know that, and my headlights were the only lights on the road. I drove east from Scottsbluff toward my family’s farm.

The woman probably heard me before I saw her. I used to drive a white 1986 Dodge 600 convertible with a Pioneer soundsystem and a 15-inch Cerwin Vega subwoofer in the trunk. I was probably listening to Rage Against the Machine and speeding through the Nebraska countryside, late, well past curfew, when I saw her standing on the center line, waving her arms for me to stop.

I remember I turned down the radio and slowed down in the middle of the highway. I couldn’t make out her face, my headlights just lighting up her body. She was wearing jeans and a white coat. She looked about 35 or 40. She stood in front of my car, making sure I was going to stay stopped before she came over to the passenger side. I unlocked the door and looked straight ahead. I didn’t know what to do.

“Thank you,” she said. She was still crying and she wiped her tears with the back of her hand. I reached into the glove compartment and gave her a few paper napkins.

“Thank you,” she said. It was very quiet with the radio off and my small car idling on highway. “Just drive,” she said.

I drove slow, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye. I could tell she didn’t want me to look at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her tears.

I didn’t say anything. I drove on and it was very quiet except for the wind coming in through the places where the convertible top didn’t seal well. We drove for a few miles, past the Haun place, past Kilthau’s, past the turn to the school. The woman sighed and looked out the window, not seeing anything, not thinking about me or the car or where she was at all.

She came out of it when we came to the four-way stop.

“Turn left here,” she said.

I made the turn slowly, delicately. We drove north toward the lake, up over Lookabill Hill. She sat up and straightened her back and set her jaw. I knew we were getting close.

“Turn in here,” she said. I pulled into a group of houses where the Krugers lived.

“This is fine.” She got out without saying anything more and walked up the drive. I watched her for a moment and then backed out of the driveway.

I left the stereo off and drove back down Lookabill Hill and through the four-way stop. I killed the engine and turned off my lights as I pulled into the yard, the only sound the crunching of rocks under the car tires. I opened and closed my car door without making much noise and crept into the house. I turned off the light in the kitchen and walked up the stairs to my bedroom on my tip-toes. I got in bed, and though I was drunk, it didn’t spin. I thought about the woman walking up the drive.

A week later, I drove home from school and stopped at the metal mailbox. The mail was normal—a Business Farmer newspaper, a few bills, a book of coupons—except for a card addressed to me. It was a simple white Thank You card and it read:

Thank you for your kindness and for helping a stranger in need.
–The woman on the highway

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