How much farther does the driver have to go? He made it to Michigan as planned, though it took a little longer than he originally estimated. Judging from the deathly-rattle somewhere beneath its hood, he’s not even sure his pickup, the closest he has to a friend, can make it much further.

The Driver has no home to return to; no family to console him and tell him everything is going to be all right; no job; only fifty-six dollars left in his pocket; and worst of all, no one with which to share his loneliness. He can’t bear to bring Paula’s smile to mind. The way it would break at mere strangers, and invest them with unquestioning trust, never failed to warn him. Now, the driver would rather shiver. He figures he doesn’t deserve its redeeming radiance.

The thought of her name, however, brings with it a wholly different kind of warmth: the burn of failure. It eats through the fog of exhaustion like a parasite and intensifies as he reads, or recognizes, the first letters printed on that white envelope, lying on the passenger floor. He won’t throw it out, the driver knows that much. Bound up in the hasty scrawl –a broken “P” and a jumbled “au”- is the sole remnant of the woman he loved and the man who took her away. It doesn’t seem so strange, when he considers it, that the two should stay with him; both in memory -however tortured and mixed- and in the form of a pale rectangle lit up by a fading moon.

The headlights find a sign and drag it out from the night. It reads:

“Now Leaving Dearborn: Drive Safely.” It’s going to be a long ride, no matter where he goes.