A Drive for Life by Sheila Rittenberg

Busy-headed forty-year-old Ruth gets a promotion that means she needs to learn to drive – and her instructor has a most unusual vehicle.

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Ruth should have canceled the driving lesson. She’ll mess it up, she just knew. She looked for the instructor from her porch. Noticed a few flowers coming up this early spring day. Crocus, crocus, tulip. Crocus, crocus, tulip. The pattern calmed her. Ruth’s fingers skimmed the banister, up and down, up and down.

The Department Chair had offered her the promotion. The call came during an evening, just as an unexpected wind shook the aspen, brought their folly, their quake, their quiver. She’d have to ping-pong between the hospital where she did Alzheimer’s research and the new genetic center across town. Too much for taxis or Ubers. She wanted this, knew she’d excel. Also knew she’d botch the driving. Told her Chair yes, she’d take the job.

A vehicle rounded the corner. A large sign on the side: DRIVING LESSONS & FUNERALS, above a phone number. The car was long and boxy and dark and the last thing she expected. A hearse. A hearse!

A man got out and called Hello from the curb – she should come, get in, he gestured.

She’d never seen a hearse up close. The back end looked big enough for a bed. Made sense. She walked down the stairs, lifting her purse strap higher and higher on her shoulder, rubbing the buckle over and over with her thumb. She came up to the vehicle from behind. A bumper sticker read STUDENT DRIVER. Well.

She squinted at her neighbors’ houses. Were they watching through slits in living room curtains or between potted palms? Especially Mr. Ninety-Something Warren. Ever since her sister brought that FORTY balloon for Ruth’s birthday, he’d yell from his porch – why aren’t you married, girly?

Driving lessons. At her age. In a hearse, no less. Ruth’s face was a hot, bursting tomato. She wanted to run back inside, double-lock the door, hide on the couch under Aunt Faye’s frayed quilt.

She would have to analyze this, this embarrassment. She examined her feelings regularly. Kept a list of them. Lonely, disgusted, bored, bored, sad. She had to do this, not that it helped. Anxious, confused, happy (!), calm. Feelings were like those gigantic balloon figures in car lots, dodging this way and that. Amused, excited, angry.

The guy was in uniform and she couldn’t tell whether it was for funerals or driving lessons. A black nylon vest over a button-down striped shirt. A patch on the vest pocket with his name stitched in large looped letters. Sheldon. She decided the uniform was for the driving lessons. Did they call the guy Shelly for short? Shel?

Now the heat was in her temples. She imagined Neighbor Warren’s ancient eyes on her, and now this Sheldon held her with a rock-steady gaze. Ruth quickly took stock. Her brown hair was dull, she’d announced earlier at the mirror, pulling it tight and low in a bun. The blouse she wore – white cotton, always with an undershirt – lifted in the breeze and she pressed the hem against her thighs. Cotton could breath and she liked that. Her stretchy polyester pants had an accordion waistband. Blunt-toed oxford tie-ups. This morning she’d remembered her mother always going on about practical footwear. Good thing. Ruth wasn’t tripping over herself in heels, now was she? But. She certainly didn’t look like the women she’d see in fashion magazines thumbing quickly through the glossy pages at the dentist or pharmacy or grocery store. No, she did not.

“Hello, Sheldon. I should call you Sheldon, right?”

Look at that. She was sociable. They shook hands. His, calloused. Coffins were heavy.

“Yes, yes, please call me Sheldon. Nice to meet you” – he looked down at his iPad – “Ruth, right?”

“Yes, it’s Ruth.” She peeked over. “See how it’s spelled?” She pointed. “The first three letters are ‘R-u-t’ – and I’m in one. Ha! Little joke.”

“Heh. Okay, Ruth.” He swiped to a form on his iPad.

The rut. It was true, she lived the same day, every day. She was her own groundhog. No going out in evenings. No phone conversations. No going to the movies. There was just work. Now, she leaned against the vehicle to look natural, as though she did this all the time. Left elbow on the hearse side panel, head tilted into her hand. Standing on one leg seemed right and she chose the left foot and crossed the right over her ankle, at which point her elbow slipped along the evidently newly waxed side of the hearse and she almost fell, but righted herself.

“Is it all right to ask, why a hearse?”

He looked up, half-squinting in the sun. “I help out undertakers and also use it to teach driving. It’s a two-fer.” He patted the hood. “Got to bring home the bacon.” He was a big guy, tall like a tree, wide head to match. A happy face, she decided, no pinched edges or deep frown lines.

“Driving lessons aren’t lucrative?”

“Not enough. Not with five kids.”

“Oh!” Ruth’s hand flew to her chest. “Five?”

“Yes.” He took a good swig from a thermos balanced in the crook of his arm. “And my wife’s pregnant.”

“Jeez! Are you Catholic?” She hoped that was okay to ask.

“No.” He held his lips together and sputtered as if he were going to spit out hot coffee.

“An Orthodox Jew?”

Now the laugh shook him. His eyes squeezed shut. If he’d had a belly, he’d be Santa Claus-esque, except he had a tight middle and short hair and no beard. So not so Santa. He could even be appealing, the way his starched shirt tucked so neatly into his pressed khaki pants. But, on second thought, he was too much a younger version of her dad. And married. With five kids. Six, almost. Well.

“No, not that either. We just love kids.” He went back to the tablet.

Her sister had all the kids and all the fun. Ruth was mathematical about life. She set the alarm to remind her about chores. Kept lists of what she’d eaten. Took the same bus to work – the same route, at the same time, every day. She weighed food for her lunch – egg salad three times a week, tuna twice. She slapped Post-its on her walls – how long a three-quarter-inch piece of chicken should cook, birds she’d seen, names for a dog, if she’d had one. Ruth even tracked her periods. She’d stick Post-its inside the medicine cabinet, just in case someone came over and used the toilet (not that anyone did). H: Humongous with clots, M: Middle of the Road Flow, E: Easy Street. And then there was Mold & Mildew: how long it took to form in the bathtub, on kitchen sponges, in the washing machine.

Driving… driving was more… intuitive. Sensory. She’d been a passenger enough to know. Stopping, going, slowing, speeding up, all blended into one seamless motion. She wasn’t a blending kind of person.

She had to be more than her rut. She had to pull herself through to the real world. Maybe then she wouldn’t have run from the guy in the library in Authors under “P” (she’d been looking for something by Chuck Palahniuk). She walked past Patchett and knew she’d gone too far and there was this guy, a wink-smile, his hand out palm-up, like when a guy gestures to a girl to go first. Maybe they could have had a conversation.

Sheldon closed his iPad, opened the driver’s door, sweeping his arm, inviting her in. She sat behind the wheel. She looked up at the rearview mirror. Reached a hand to adjust it (just like every driver she’d watched). Curtains in a car. Remnants of white satin in the rear. Tracks back there, like a sleigh’s runners, for coffins coming in or out. An astringent odor. Her tongue tingled, mouth puckered. Didn’t surprise her. These smells blew around her every day in the lab, with her cultures and mice.

Sheldon stood outside the open driver’s door, put his thermos and iPad on the hood of the hearse, and pressed the side lever of Ruth’s seat so she could reach the pedals. Adjusted the backrest. He was so close. She had that urge to run. No matter Sheldon was Dad-like.

Sheldon handed her the seat belt. Her hands wouldn’t work right and the metal buckle kept sliding and missing its receptacle-slot-thing. Her hands sweated. She had that condition, hyperhidrosis. Sweat Fret, she’d named it. As a kid, she hid her hands behind her back or deep in her pockets or groveled with sorry-sorry if she happened to brush up against a girl’s blouse, leaving a damp splotch. Couldn’t hold a guy’s hand when yours was all sweaty. Not that she’d had any real chances.

Now, sweat over her palms, maybe because Sheldon was dapper. Maybe because she was actually going to drive – and not just drive, but drive a hearse, which wasn’t invisible like a regular car, say a boring Dodge like Mr. Warren’s, tucking into traffic without anyone noticing. The acrid smells here. The clotted wood panels. The lurking curtains. Ruth kept expecting to see a coffin back there wrapped in ashen cloth, and inside: a drained blue person.

Sheldon collected the thermos and iPad and got in the passenger side. Had to ask some questions. Had she ever driven? No. Mind if he asked how old she was? Forty. Had she ever taken driving lessons? Not really. He blotted circles on the iPad form. Her voice was like Jell-O, if Jell-O could talk. Wobbly and weird green and melting away under this interrogation.

She’d been too nerdy in high school to learn to drive, and university undergrad was all of three years – guess what, she was an overachiever, too – and med school was impossible, and after that her fellowship had taken over, consumed her, driven her, and then the start of lecturing, and launching a new clinical trial. She’d come home so late. Who had time to even think about learning to drive? But now she was a lead researcher, and associate professor doing her own instructing, thank you very much.

“I was too busy to learn to drive, Sheldon. I’m a medical researcher, a doctor, you know.” She cleared her throat, wiped her hands on the inside thighs of her pants.

“You okay?”

She sagged into herself. “Sure, sure. Just not used to being in the driver’s seat.” Ha.

The hearse messed her up. She decided she needed to make friends with it and silently named this chapel of repose. Harris. Harris, the Hearse, she breathed, and set her chin on the steering wheel.

Her seat had lush mohair-like upholstery. Not bad! Another quick adjustment of the rearview mirror, tilting it left, right, raising her eyebrows at herself, her own comedy act. The walls gleamed in the back, sleek, not a handle or knob in sight. There were tiny lights on a track tucked along a crease below the roof. White pleated curtains on each window, six in all. The light from outside sashayed like a dance.

The end of life, a hearse. Or the beginning of one if Ruth learned to drive. She’d sit in coffee shops with friends, chat about fashion, gardens, the latest movie. She’d join a book club! Ruth imagined driving to these places and people. A physical tightness grew in her chest, fibers pulling in opposite directions.

Sheldon went over how to use the side mirrors (clearly, she knew the middle one), the pedals, turn signals. Ruth recited it all back even though he didn’t ask her to. That was calming. She knew this driving stuff in her head. Was good with things in her head. Like the other day in the lab, she lectured on how to inoculate a bacterial culture. And then she did it using a sterile pipette tip. In the lab, she was fierce, fantastic, practically flawless – in the driver’s seat, you might say. Ha. Good one.

Not now. Ruth’s hands felt like frog skin. Her neck was covered in sweat. She noticed Kleenex on the console, slipped one into her palm, wrapped her hand around it so the tissue didn’t show, patted her neck. She worried Sheldon could hear her stomach. She managed stem cells and mice and millions of dollars of medical treatments without a nervous twitch but couldn’t handle driving.

Her doctor – well, fine, her therapist – said Ruth was solid with Facts and Figures. Bodily reactions can be measured by pupil dilation. The number 143 means I love you. There you go again, Ruth, she’d say. You’re giving me facts, not feelings.

“It would be a good idea, Ruth, to learn something new, something that’d make you uncomfortable, actually.”

Her niece’s graduation. Wouldn’t it be something to turn up behind the wheel. And wouldn’t it be really something to pull off the big promotion.

The motor dinged and Sheldon shook his head. Ruth smelled something musty on him, like wet fur. Maybe he had five dogs at home, too. Sheldon and that big family. Maybe they were Mormon.

“Now, please, stay in park, but step on the gas as if you’re starting to drive.”

She tapped just the right amount. The engine snorted and protested, rumblings of discontent, like a far-away roll of thunder.

“Fast learner.”

Her shoulders shimmied. She turned up her collar to look less amateur.

There were floor pedals where Sheldon sat. She wondered if there were ever an actual front-seat passenger when the hearse was being a hearse. Someone who wanted to take over, put on the brakes, stop the trip to the cemetery, stop death, go back to when their person was alive.

“You put in those brakes?” She pointed. “Do you own this hearse?”

“Yes, yes I did and yes I do.” Sheldon’s voice was a glorious baritone. He threaded the iPad stylus over the top of his ear. His skin was tight over his jaw, which sawed back and forth. Grinding teeth was a bad habit. His eyebrows were furry.

She straightened her back, put both hands on the wheel, the “ten-and-two” position.

“The wheel, Ruth, nine and three.”

“The driving manual says ten and two.”

“Out of date, Ruth.”

Sheldon pointed to the parking brake. She released it, dared a look over as he sank into his seat. His lips moved, no sound. What was that, a prayer?

“Okay, Ruth. Please pull out.”

She looked for cars, signaled, sped up just a touch. Sheldon let out a long breath. Off they went. Driving was like entering the mainstream, the highway of life. But to where? Not the library – bearded guys, tattooed guys, guys in the aisles who might approach her. Not to Safeway where the checker wouldn’t bag her groceries right that time (Ruth’s throat had clogged and she’d made guttural noises, people behind her backing away). Not to the hairdresser who shouted at Ruth for insisting on an appointment that very minute. Not to the concert hall or that Italian restaurant or the Japanese tea house.

Whenever she ventured out a wave inside would swash against her organs, trying to push her out of her Ruth-ness. Keep going, it said, keep going. But she was a clam ripped from its shell. She’d been paralyzed so long. No friend who accepted her. No day when she wasn’t empty after eating her one-pot dinner (had to be one-pot). No moment at the mirror when she was fine-looking.

She drove toward the neighborhood shops and restaurants. She and Sheldon chatted as she imagined two friends would. What was she going to do this weekend? (Walk her Saturday route.) How about those Zeniths in the playoffs? (The Zeniths?) Who did she think would win the election? (Not Johnson, the creep.)

“What are your other students like, Sheldon?”

She was driving! And talking! The thrill rose up her back, sunlight under her skin. She was tempted to roll down her window, rest her arm on the frame, let the breeze pull her hair loose from its bun. She was getting ahead of herself. Well.

“Ruth, you’re an interesting lady. Doctor, I mean. My students are usually kids, full of themselves, waiting to fly out there with a new license tucked into tight jeans.”

That seemed to be a compliment. She hummed. There were kids in playgrounds, dogs trotting, a parked UPS truck. Foot steady on the pedal, eyes ahead, a glance in the rearview mirror, a turn signal, a gentle braking around the corner.

An intersection. The light was yellow. Ruth was fixed on the stoplight and didn’t let up on the gas soon enough. She went for the brake and wound up slamming it. Hard. The hearse fishtailed, screamed to a sudden and terrifying stop, skidded, its front close to a woman who’d just stepped off the curb.

This person – barely twenty, Ruth thought – was yelling now, her head flying side to side, cheeks filling with air. Spittle flew from her mouth. A spatter may have even hit the windshield. Hands on hips, chest heaving as if she’d been sprinting. Didn’t they have enough dead people in that thing? What the hell were they trying to do, kill her? What the fuck, anyway.

Ruth lifted herself higher off the seat, like a gymnast on parallel bars. She could see the woman’s prairie-type skirt. The boots, Doc Martens, held their ground. The girl’s lips, painted deep purple, set off her pale skin. Ruth whimpered, shriveled back down into her seat, lowered her forehead onto the steering wheel. Harris idled. That ping again.

Sheldon got out. Ruth lowered her window but couldn’t really hear him and the girl-woman. He was half bowing, must have been apologizing. Ruth heard something about student driver and faintly, What can I do for you?

Sheldon reached into his pocket. He and the girl moved closer together. Something was going on. She left then, took long strides, head down, shoving that something into her tote bag. There were tassels on that bag. Ruth had a pleather case with wheels.

Sheldon got back in the hearse. “Now, Ruth” – a long inhale – “I’d like you to go, slowly, to the right and pull over.”

“I wasn’t in control there, Sheldon.”

His face twisted up, as if he’d eaten a sour apple.

Her fingers turned cold squeezing the wheel. “I’m so sorry, Sheldon.”

“Get moving. Please. There are cars behind us.”

She parked. Her heartbeat was in her head. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. She could have driven right into that girl. And Sheldon didn’t use his brake! She threw her hands to her face. Bam. Bam. Bam.

“Ruth, there are always setbacks. You’ve faced them. Medical school, right? Your research?”

“Yes, yes.” She was biting the inside of her cheek, sucking in breath.

“You can be in control. You need time, practice. And I’m going to give you that.”

This wasn’t Sweat Fret, it was a flood. It was as if goose pimples broke out and burst, the ooze of shame seeping all over her body. She shook from freezing air, in April. “I need to go home.”

“Ruth.”

She swallowed a full-on cry and pressed her lips together, stifling a scream.

“You know, I couldn’t teach my wife to drive when we first met. Had to ask an instructor friend to do it.” He laughed.

“Oh.”

“Yes.” He shook his head, his lips curving into a fun memory, then paused. He rubbed his chin back and forth with the back of his hand. “That’s not all.”

“Oh?”

“My daughter. I taught her to drive. The moment she turned sixteen and had her license, she took off in our Subaru and we haven’t seen her since.” He shook his head and looked up with soppy eyes. “Two long years.”

“That’s terrible!” Ruth wished she could feel sadness. Or even cry. If only she could search on her phone, What to say when people have bad news. “Did you teach her to drive in the Subaru or the hearse?”

“The Subaru.” Sheldon rubbed his hands over his forearms and now he looked cold.

“I want to go home, Sheldon.” She knew her voice had gone childlike, whiney. “I want to go back to my life the way it was.”

His hands now in his lap. He didn’t wag his finger. He didn’t yell.

“Come now.” His smile, a man-Mona Lisa. “Let’s try again.”

“Did you pay off that girl?”

“Don’t be silly. I gave her my card and a coupon for free driving lessons.”

“Okay, okay, okay.” She blinked a few times. Deep-breathed. She was a doctor. She knew how to calm down. She was a person who could do this.

He’d had lots of students who’d been worse drivers, he told her. And anyway, she was different. Older. Accomplished. “You okay having another go at it?”

“I guess.”

“Is there anything else you want to talk about?” he asked. “No rush.” He clasped his hands behind his neck.

Well. There was a lot she wanted to talk about. How to be in this world, for starters. “I’m okay, Sheldon. Don’t need to talk.”

He looked at her. “You will drive, you know.”

She had to do this. She thought about the applause yesterday. They’d established T-cells as the target for their Alzheimer’s research. “We know one piece of the puzzle,” she’d announced, clapping. Her team cheered. If only she had a life team like her lab one.

Sheldon’s voice was slow, steady. The engine’s idle pebbly.

“We’re going to head out of town, Ruth. Less traffic, if any. We’ll go slowly.”

“How far out of town?” She swallowed, one fast one after another.

“Not far. We’re going to stretch you out, let your muscles ease up, see how this lovely drive feels without cars around. Trust me.”

Soon there were billboards instead of condos, gravel instead of bike lanes. It was easier to breathe. This could be okay. The houses were bigger, with land – actual land – instead of teeny cookie-cutter yards. The road went to two lanes, no median. Magpies in obedient rows lined telephone wires.

“Sheldon. I’m nervous about leaving the house.” She’d just popped a feeling!

“It’ll be different once you’re driving.”

No cars, no bicycles, no distractions. She drove. This was different. This was heaven. She wished she could try a cigarette like that red-haired actress did in the old movies. Ruth felt more relaxed. Noticed, with just a glance, two tiny figures on Harris’s dashboard – a bride and groom – hugging each other. The clean smell of oily lemon polish. A small bundle of lavender hanging from the rearview mirror. Harris was happy.

Ruth sped up, eyes on the road. She pretended the hearse was a convertible and rustled her hair with her left hand. The bun came loose. Well.

Then a large something in the distance. It looked like a storage container. Ruth sucked in air through her teeth. Muscles tightened. Sweat Fret.

“Uh, Sheldon? There’s a cow, I think. Crossing the road.”

“Hmmmm.” He took off his sunglasses, leaned forward and peered out.

“A black cow. Big one.”

“Keep going, keep it slow,” Sheldon said.

“A whopping black cow, Sheldon.” She pinched her forehead. “Smack in the middle of the road.” She never swore, hated swearing, but would love to let it rip right now. A whopping black fucking cow smack in the middle of the road.

“Just stop when you come to ole Bessie.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Sheldon.” She could now see the curves of the cow. “I should let you take over.”

“Ruth, you’re doing fine. Get closer. If the cow doesn’t move, go around her to the left. Slowly, though.”

“What happens if something’s coming the other way?” She could make out the swishing tail.

“What happens, Ruth?”

“I wait.” Bessie’s jaw was moving. Nostrils flaring.

“Yes.”

Now she could see flies on the cow’s backside. She braked to stop.

“Wait it out,” Sheldon said.

“Okay, okay.” Ruth hugged the steering wheel. Cows were slow creatures.

Bessie took some steps, a walk so slow. Her whole side was wet. Ruth wondered about that. Do cows sweat? Then, a Bessie-baby crawl, maybe five inches farther, now two. Then, the cow stopped. Right in front of them. The switch of her tail flung backward and brushed across Harris’s hood.

“Well.” Ruth let go of the wheel. Sighed. Swore she could see the outline of the four chambers of Bessie’s stomach. The flies were around Bessie’s eyes.

“Let’s get off the road so we can talk,” Sheldon said. “See over there?” He pointed to the right. “That little farm road. Pull in, okay?”

Ruth backed up from Bessie, turned the wheel, touched the gas. Gas-brake, gas-brake. They lurched like this over to the side.

Sheldon talked through the Bessie event, what had been right, what had been wrong. His baritone was smooth, calm. His eyes shone. A true teacher. If only she could review her day every day with someone like Sheldon, someone to help her figure a way into the world.

A ding in the engine. Then a gritty sound – fast, faster like a plane revving up – then the idle turned slow and rattling.

The engine gave out.

Ruth turned the ignition, touched the gas. Nothing. She tried again. Same. The hearse was dead. The hearse needed a hearse. Ruth got out and stepped aside while Sheldon came around. “Damn,” he said after a few tries man-turning the key. He got out, slammed the door, opened the hood, secured it with a prong-like rod that lived in the crook on the side of the engine. Sheldon put his head in. Ruth gasped when the rod shook. Sheldon fingered it, sliding a hollow bolt into place up at the joint, without even lifting an eye.

The farm road was weedy, gravelly, and didn’t go far. Strewn paper cups, an empty milk jug, greasy blackened rags, a few crinkled Doritos bags. A doomed road. There was a small house with a slanted porch. Two cars out front, one jacked up with no tires, the other without a driver’s door (but with tires). A third, intact (doors, tires, all of it) was off to the side.

The screen door opened and slammed shut. A stocky tan dog now on the porch. And then a guy in a dirt-smeared white T-shirt, torn jeans, baseball hat on backwards, something hanging from his mouth. Thin and wiry. Probably thirty or so. He held a pole with a red bulbous end on his shoulder. He and the dog walked toward Ruth, Sheldon and Harris.

“Oh!” Ruth’s hands shot forward as if to hug. Here was some help! Uh-oh. Maybe that was too friendly. She quickly crossed her arms across her chest.

“You folks have a problem?” The guy chewed on a dead cigar. The pole was a toilet plunger.

Sheldon dipped out from under the hood. “Yes, yes we do. Car died.”

The guy kicked at dust-choked weeds. “That there’s a hearse, not your usual car.”

“Right, a hearse.”

“What all happened?”

“We were waiting on the road for a cow to move, pulled in here, car idled, died.”

The man flipped the plunger so the rubber end was on the ground and the pole stood straight up. He stayed tall and cupped his hands over the top, a shepherd grasping his staff or a warrior gripping the hilt of his sword, Ruth couldn’t tell. There was no pinky finger on his left hand.

“Did it make a noise before it gave out?”

“Yes!” Ruth uncrossed her arms, surprised. “How’d you know that? You’re a plumber, no?”

“I fix toilets. I fix cars. Just about anything. Drains clogged with hair. Old clocks. Busted staplers. Even wonky cell phones.”

“Got it,” Ruth said.

“You can’t be doing this on my property, you know.” His eyes in slits now, voice greasy and drawn out like cowboys on TV.

“We’d love not to,” Sheldon said, his head back under the hood. “But at this particular juncture” – he drew out particular so each syllable was a word – “we can’t start the damn engine.”

“I’ll help push her off my road. Put her in neutral.”

So, a vehicle was “she.” Well.

Sheldon ducked out from under the hood. He bit down on his lower lip and curled it into his mouth. Eyes bulged. “Hold on there,” he said, louder than Ruth expected. “We’re trying here. Why don’t you be a good citizen and let us finish.”

Sheldon took a step toward the cigar-plunger guy. In sync, the dog leapt and lunged. Sheldon cried No! The guy cried No! The snarl, the bared yellow teeth, the bark-wail as the dog tried to bite through Sheldon’s once-pressed-but-now-wrinkled khaki pants. Sheldon lost his balance and fell backward. His head hit the dust.

Sheldon started to sit up. “Holy shit.”

“Sheldon!” Ruth ran to him.

“That’ll do it,” the guy said. “Hattie here won’t let anyone near me. I’m working with her, though, honest.” The guy’s lips shrunk back, long dull teeth showing, and he winced as though he was the one hurt. “I rescued her from a miserable place.”

Hattie’s flank heaved, she moaned, ears up. The guy held her back by the collar. Ruth lifted Sheldon’s eyelids. Felt the back of his head. A bump. Did he see double? No. What day was it? April 2nd. What was his student’s name? Ruth, but don’t forget the “h” because she’s not in a rut anymore.

What a dear man. “Help me get him to the car,” she said to the farm guy.

The jerk didn’t budge.

“Listen, I’m not afraid of you,” she said, surprising herself.

He flinched. “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“Please, come here, and leave your dog right there. And the plunger-thing.”

The guy toed his boot into the ground and dust welled up this way and that. He took the cigar out of his mouth and looked back at the house and his cars and then once again at Ruth, almost like a pitcher revving up to throw the ball. Told Hattie to stay and left the plunger-thing.

“Sheldon, we’re going to help you to the passenger seat,” Ruth said. They each put an arm around Sheldon and walked to Harris.

“Ruth, I’m fine.” Sheldon sat. “Just give me a couple of those,” pointing to the Kleenex.

“You may be the teacher, Sheldon, but I’m the doctor.”

The farm guy looked at Ruth. “You? A doctor?”

“That’s right,” she said.

He looked down and kicked the gravel with the side of his work boot, ruddy brown, full of mud, broken off shoelaces. Sheldon lay his cheek against the seat, closed his eyes.

“Stay awake, Sheldon.” That concussed patient during her Emergency rotation had slept himself into a coma. “We’re going to the hospital.”

“Hospital? Aw, come on, Ruth.”

She ignored him.

“Ruth,” Sheldon reached for her hand. “We can’t go anywhere until…” He rubbed his forehead as if he were trying to fling off a fly.

“Having trouble finishing a thought?” Ruth asked.

Sheldon nodded.

She turned to the guy. “What’s your name?”

“Heath.”

“You work on those, right, Heath?” She nodded to the cars.

“Yeah.”

Ruth rubbed her scalp, pinched it, closed her burning eyes. She’d ricocheted from novice driver, to near-murderer, to emergency doc, in one day.

“I want you to get this hearse started. You can do that, can’t you?”

“I can, probably.”

“Go on then. Please.”

He stood still, stared at Hattie. Finally, he took off his cap, ran his hand through his hair. “I suppose it’s the least I can do.”

“That’s right,” said Ruth.

Heath went around to the front of the hearse and looked under the hood. Sheldon was nodding off. “Uh-uh-uh,” Ruth yelled, as she would to a dog about to pee on the carpet.

“Can you try starting the car?” Heath yelled.

She did. Nothing.

“One second,” again from under the hood.

She was sure it was an hour.

“Okay, try again!” Then two more tries.

Harris started up.

She clapped and turned to Sheldon. He nodded. She got out of the car, left Harris running. Heath studied the engine for a bit, closed the hood, wiped his hands on his jeans.

“The carburetor is taking in too much fuel,” Heath said. “Don’t turn her off. You should be okay until town.”

Ruth stood tall, adjusted her blouse on her shoulders.

“Heath?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

He tipped his chin down, tough and hard-faced. Hattie stood, ears stiff. The air was sticky, a smell of barbequed meat in the air. Heath stared at Ruth. In a moment, his face softened, losing its Clint Eastwood-ness.

Ruth looked at her watch, got in the car. “Bye, Heath.”

He nodded, actually waved.

She turned toward town. Adjusted the rearview mirror, again. Wriggled into the driver’s seat. Cleared her throat and inhaled deeply. Ruth and Sheldon looked at each other. He nodded to say, go ahead.

“Hang in.” She patted Sheldon’s shoulder.

“Put both hands on the wheel, Ruth.”

“Right-ee-o.”

She scanned the road like it was an X-ray – every angle, every risk. Every change in the light, every shadow at road’s edge. Every fracture in the pavement. Sheldon was awake but seemed distant. This route would take her right past the hospital. She wasn’t really thinking about driving. It just happened.

It started to rain, of course it would, heavy slats of it. Ruth turned on, turned up, the wipers. Harris’s automatic lights went on. The sky – etched in black, painted in gloom – moved down on them. She sat up straighter. The steering wheel, sweat slippery. Fallen branches. Leaves, miniature wind turbines. Horses huddled. She started to slide downward inside of herself, she wasn’t sure to where.

She would not let herself be herself. Afraid of doing normal things. Afraid of being out in life. Afraid of driving.

“Okay, it’s you and me, Harris,” she whispered.