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her near cheek. “But you have to stay here after we drop her off.”

  The woman stumbled out of the snow bank and grabbed the door to keep from falling. She paused again to catch her breath. Then, with much effort and maneuvering, she got turned around and sat back first on the seat, then pulled her legs into the car one at a time. All her parts inside the car, she took another minute to catch her breath then slammed the door shut. That action rippled all the way across the front seat, squishing the three together and leaving Becca almost entirely on Zach’s side of the middle console.

  Becca asked, “Can you drive?”

  Zach laughed. “I can steer and probably manage the clutch and the brakes. But the shift lever is all yours.”

  She nodded. “Just say when.”

  Zach said, “Let’s start with first gear and go from there.”

  Becca pushed the shift knob into first with only a little grinding of metal, and Zach let the clutch out and they moved slowly forward. Rather than take a chance on shifting, Zach drove the whole way to the hotel in the creeping first gear.

  The woman, still huffing and puffing, said little during their three-minute ride to the hotel. She muttered something about walking to the convenience store to get snacks, but the nearest convenience store was a half-mile in the other direction and had been closed for hours. The woman offered no further explanation of her plight and they didn’t ask for one.

  The hotel’s covered drop-off was an oasis of light and dry pavement. Zach parked in front of the entry doors and got out and walked around to help the woman. She gladly accepted his hand and he tugged her out of the low and tight confines of the passenger seat. In the short ride, her breathing had calmed slightly and her face was less sweaty though still flushed. She wavered from side to side on her swollen feet in those soaked shoes. Zach offered her his arm and she gladly accepted. They walked together up to the entry. They discovered that the doors were locked and had to ring the bell to wake the sleeping desk clerk. The gray-haired man shuffled up to the entry, turned the deadbolt, and pushed open one of the doors. “We wondered if you’d ever come back,” he said to the woman.

  The woman made no reply and didn’t even acknowledge the desk clerk. She released Zach’s arm and walked through the door and across the entry and around the corner out of sight without a word or glance back.

  Zach looked at the man. “Found her stumbling through the snow just this side of the hospital.”

  The clerk shook his head. “I told her not to go out. But it’s a free country.”

  Zach shrugged. “Free country.” He turned to leave.

  The clerk said, “Have a nice night, what’s left of it.”

  Zach waved over his shoulder.

  Becca was back in the passenger seat when he slid behind the wheel. “Any explanation?” she asked.

  “Free country,” Zach said.

  Becca looked puzzled. “Free to die alone in the snow in the middle of the night?”

  “Or get rescued by nocturnal wanderers.”

  “Thanks for stopping, Zach.”

  “Didn’t want her death on our conscience.”

  Becca laughed. “That too.”

  The turn-off to Zach’s apartment was just a little farther down the road. But when they got to it, Zach coasted right past the turn, continuing straight on the main road. Neither had spoken since the hotel, and neither spoke now. This night, which was fast waning, had fully embraced them; and they weren’t quite ready to surrender the gift.

  So they drove slowly and steadily through the snow and the dark the two miles to where the road ended at another highway. There Zach made a wide turn in the middle of the intersection and headed back the way they’d just come. The whole way they saw no other car or person or living creature. The houses and businesses they passed were all dark. The intermittent woods were silent and still. Surely life continued somewhere—maybe behind those darkened windows, maybe in those solemn woods. But for all they could see or tell or feel, the snow-bound world belonged to them and they to it, a two-part entity full engaged in reciprocal praise and thanks.

  When they came back to the road to his apartment, Zach turned this time. The road sloped down all the way to his apartment building far below, invisible in the blowing snow. Zach switched off the car’s engine and turned off its lights. They coasted silently down the hill, the deep soft fluffy snow pushed harmlessly away to either side. The apartment building loomed up out of the snow like a great ship in the fog. They coasted past the end of the building, turned left to coast along the front where the road ran level, then left again into the parking lot. Still coasting, Zach guided the car into a spot next to the walk, two up from his snow-shrouded truck. The car’s momentum would’ve carried them a little further, but not the night’s. Behind the clouds and the wind-blown snow, dawn approached.

  They were home. It was time for bed and whatever new stasis they could carve out from the aftermath of this blessed night.

  The End

  Thanks for reading this story!

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  https://jeffreyandersonfiction.wordpress.com.

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