Around four in the morning, she finally fell asleep with her hot little hand wrapped around my
finger. I didn’t move until the sun came up. My leg was so numb I couldn’t stand.
I taught her to drive in the church parking lot.
This church. The same one where I was sitting in the last row in a dusty rose dress.
Every Sunday afternoon for three months, after the service let out and everybody went home, we’d sit in that big empty lot in my old Honda. She’d grip the wheel so hard her knuckles went white. She’d stomp on the brake so hard we’d both fly forward against our seatbelts.
“I’m going to kill us,” she said once.
“You’re not going to kill us.”
“I’m going to hit the dumpster.”
“You’re nowhere near the dumpster.”
“I’m going to hit Pastor Jim’s car.”
