‘I was up in Alaska when it happened, driving tankers for Exxon. I hated that work, but it saved my life. For what it was worth.’ Her voice took on a mournful tone. ‘My family were all down here. Granted, it was no great loss, losing my husband. Part of why I had to go to Alaska in the first place was to pay off the income taxes he never filed. The Wave gave me the divorce I always wanted. But I’d take it all back to see my kids and grandbabies again.’

For the first time in their journey together, Sofia thought Cindy’s jolly exterior might fail. Her features squeezed in on her blue eyes, the tears welling up and falling freely. She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. With one hand, she waved at her face until the tears faded.

‘Oh Lord, it never gets any easier.’ She cleared her throat and sniffed. ‘I still have two sons in the Corps. They were in Iraq. But everyone else, well . . . I’d always driven short-haul routes before then. My worthless husband saved my life with his laziness.’

Everybody she met had one of these stories, thought Sofia. All of the Americans, anyway. You could sort them by type. There were those who hated the Wave for everything it had taken away. There were others who were grateful for the Wave because it gave them a clean slate to start over again. And you had your fence-sitters like Cindy, who saw it as a mixed blessing, but mainly bad.

Most of them seemed to think that Sofia’s own history – when she was telling it straight – sounded exciting and adventurous. Right up until the point they learned about what had happened to her family. But apart from telling the trucker that her father had died recently, she hadn’t shared much of a personal nature since they’d met.

‘I’m sorry about your family, Cindy,’ Sofia said. ‘You must miss them very much.’

‘Every day,’ she replied, wiping at one eye with the back of her hand. ‘And I get the nightmares with it, just like you.’

Probably not just like me, thought Sofia. But she kept that to herself.

Cindy cleared her throat, before powering up the radio and calling up the other trucks. ‘Hey fellas, we’re about ten minutes out. Y’all up for a pit stop?’

A speaker box crackled somewhere above their heads and a man’s voice answered.

‘Sure enough. How’s your passenger doing?’

‘She’s fine, Dave. Slept like a baby inside your old coat.’

‘Good to hear. Signing off. See you in ten.’