Now, standing still, the trees reveal nothing. The shaggy conifers cower under a veil of falling snow. The grey sky leeches the color out of everything, leaving only the grimy tint of salted slush splashed on the underskirts of her hatchback.
The officer has been off his phone for a while, writing in a tiny notebook. The blood roars in Sarah’s ears, or maybe it’s another truck rattling past. They’ll be looking for her. And this officer will remember her. Of course he will. He won’t remember her face, but he’ll remember what she looks like. The box she ticks.
A muddy tow truck materializes out of the falling snow and pulls up behind the police car. The officer gets out to greet the driver. A rangy young white man bounds from the truck, his mask tucked under his chin.
Sarah reluctantly climbs back out into the cold. The tow truck driver glances up at the sudden movement and yanks the mask up over his nose. “Shit,” he says, stepping back. Sarah’s teeth grind behind her smile. “Are you fucking kidding me, Isaac? She could have the virus.”
“She’s from Toronto,” the officer says.
“Exactly.”
“We can’t leave the car on the side of the highway, Jerry. It’s a traffic hazard.”
“Fine. I’ll take the car, but not her. Lars’ll probably quarantine it for a few days before he touches it.”
Panic surges in Sarah’s chest like heartburn. “A fewdays?”
Jerry blinks at her in surprise and then turns back to the officer. “So she’s gonna need someplace to stay.”
“I could call my brother—” she starts.
“Timmins is almost six hours away, and it’ll be dark soon. And you can’t ask him to drive in this.” The officer gestures at the flurrying snow, and Sarah’s legs threaten to buckle, because he’s right.
“She can’t come to town,” Jerry says, twitching like a rabbit. “The inn’s closed, and no one’s doing Airbnb anymore. And even if they were, no one’s gonna takeher.”
“I haven’t been anywhere but the grocery store for months, and I always mask up,” Sarah says, struggling to keep her smile in place. “I don’t have COVID.”
Jerry spits on the gravel. “We don’t know that. Shit,youdon’t know that.”
“Is there anywhere I can go?” she asks, trying to keep dismay from cracking her polite surface.
The officer shakes his head. “Every place around here is closed. Though I could ask—” He clicks his tongue.
Jerry smirks. “The Suicide Motel?”
The officer shoots him a look that could sear glass. “My nephews run a motel just outside of town. They’re closed too, but I could ask them to put you up. They had good reviews before—” He waves his hand, as ifbeforeis another place, like the city Sarah just left. “You’ll have to quarantine for two weeks before we let you in town to get your car.”
“But my brother could pick me up tomorrow?—”
The officer’s eyes narrow above his mask. “I don’t know what it’s like in Toronto—” The name of her hometown comes out as a sneer, and she realizes with a sinking heart that being from the big bad city is another mark against her. “But in Sweetside, we take the pandemic seriously. Half our seniors died, including my in-laws, and a bunch more folks are on ventilators in North Bay. So no one comes through unless they’ve got a clean bill of health. I hope you don’t have anywhere to be.”
Sarah’s face is starting to ache from smiling. “No. Not at all.”
* * *
Sarah’s sneakers skid over the frosty gravel of the highway’s shoulder. Although she’s found her mask and put it on, Jerry still won’t come within ten feet of her. She places the car key on the driver’s seat and steps away to give him space, fighting hopeless tears. That key was her key to freedom. The key to the future. But she’d been foolish to think she deserved one. And now here she is, dependent on—as the Tennessee Williams play says—the kindness of strangers.
She doesn’t rememberA Streetcar Named Desireending well for Blanche.
She fists her bare hands in her coat’s pockets, shrinking every time a blob of snow deposits a sloppy kiss on her ears. Her mask’s cotton layers aren’t enough to block the wind’s icy claws, and she’s frozen inside and out. The police officer is on the phone again, inside his car. He doesn’t make eye contact with her, and neither does Jerry. The tow truck driver hooks up her car, and the blinking rear of the old hatchback disappears into the horizon. Sarah watches forlornly as snow fills in the tire tracks. Minutes later, there’s little evidence her car ever existed. She’d wanted to disappear, but not like this.
A red pickup does a U-turn and pulls in behind the police car. A stack of plywood juts out of the back, covered loosely with a tarp.
The officer climbs out of his car and beckons at Sarah. “That’s Caleb, my nephew.”
Sarah peers at the truck, trying to make out her savior through the blowing snow and swaying windshield wipers. Another white man sits behind the wheel, his shoulders filling out a red buffalo plaid jacket. A wing of dark brown hair falls over his forehead as he grabs the mask dangling from the rearview mirror. She catches a glimpse of a square chin dimpled with a cleft before it disappears beneath the fabric.
“Uncle Isaac,” the man calls out as he hops down from the truck. Although they’re both masked, Sarah can see the family resemblance. The height, the broad shoulders, the purposeful way they move. These are men who never have to think about how much space they take up because they’re used to people making room for them.
