So here I am now, working the late shift at a gas station off Highway 52. It’s one of those places truckers stop at when they need coffee and a bathroom break, where the lights flicker sometimes and the air always smells like burned hot dogs from the roller grill.
It’s quiet most nights, just me and the buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead. The same three songs play on repeat from the radio, and after a while, you stop really hearing them.
That particular night started like all the others. A couple of truckers came through around 9 p.m. A teenager bought energy drinks and beef jerky at 10 p.m. Then it went quiet again, the way it always does after 10:30 p.m. I was restocking cigarettes behind the counter, half-listening to some talk radio show, when the door chimed.
It was 11:30 p.m. when she walked in.
She was carrying a sleeping child on her shoulder, a little boy whose arms hung limp around her neck. She moved so carefully, like even breathing too loud might wake him.
Her hair was messy and pulled back in a loose ponytail, her gray sweatshirt had stains on the sleeve, and her eyes looked hollow.