Eileen gives a brief, humorless laugh. “I doubt my mother would think so. She was scared I might succeed at something she never got to do.”

I have no idea what to say to this. I peek in the rearview mirror. Eileen is stroking the hair off Josten’s forehead. “Mama tried like hell to talk me out of going, but I went anyway,” she says. “Big mistake.”

“What, leaving home?” Molly asks.

“Leaving with him. With my boyfriend, Mick. My ex, now.”

There is no air of I-told-you-so when we stop at a modest clapboard house at the far side of a town called Honeymoon. Eileen’s mother, who doesn’t look a day over forty, gathers her into a hug that emanates relief and gratitude. She inspects the baby, now groggy and mellow from his nap, and holds him against her as if he’s a missing piece of herself. “Look at this doll, baby,” she whispers, shutting her eyes and inhaling. “Just look at him.”

Through the lines of fatigue around her mouth, Eileen beams. “It’s good to be home,” she says.

“I’m glad you’re here,” the mother replies. “No idea what I did without you.” Then she turns and thanks me in a trembling voice. “Would you like to stay for supper?” she asks. “I got some sweet corn from a neighbor. And I just made some lemonade, fresh.”

“Thanks, but we have to keep going,” I tell her.

Molly surprises me by saying, “Maybe a glass of lemonade…”

The woman, whose name is Shelley, serves it in mismatched glasses and asks us about our trip.

“My mom’s dropping me off at college,” Molly says.

“Goodness, college. That’s exciting.”

The baby starts fussing himself awake and Eileen turns away to tend to him. I admire the patchwork quilt draped over the back of the sofa, and Shelley tells me it’s a family heirloom.

“I’m working on one myself,” I say. “It’s my biggest project to date.”

“I like sewing,” she says. “I made all of Eileen’s costumes for her dance routines. I don’t sew much anymore. The local fabric store folded, and the nearest superstore’s thirty miles away. They got everything you need there, but I miss the shop. All the women were friends, you know?”

I think of the shop back home. Here in the middle of nowhere, this woman had nailed it—a community for women.

She gives us a local map that shows more detail than my Triple-A triptych. She indicates a route back to the highway that will put us a good eighty miles ahead of where we were.

Molly takes over driving again. I pick up my quilting. She says, “Dad’s going to freak when you tell him we picked up a stranger.”

“She needed a lift. We had no choice.”

“I’m glad we helped her out. We’re behind on our schedule now, though.”

“We don’t need to be anywhere specific,” I note. “It was a goal, the four hundred miles.”

We drive through a few towns fringed by strip malls or trailer parks. There is an air of exhaustion that seeps into the atmosphere of these places, and we’re glad to leave them behind.