Gina thought of the couple in the car, so afraid of what was in front of them that they had forgotten what would be behind. She wondered if they’d been fighting about the road, if they’d argued about what to do, or if they’d agreed to stop. She thought of the view from the truck, the car materializing in the field of white.

“That must be what truckers fear, hitting someone,” she said.

The old man widened his eyes. “You ever talk to those guys?” he asked. “We used to run a truck stop in Choteau. Those guys aren’t scareda anything.”

“Oh, Al, that’s not true,” his wife said.

“It is.”

Chase gazed across the room. “You think they’ll get that truck off the road today?”

“Not likely,” the old man said. “Not in this storm.”

Chase seemed to be thinking. His eyes, downturned at the corners, always seemed to be thinking—not plotting, just considering. She thought it was why juries liked him. Her mother had liked him, too, at first, and liking him might have carried the day with her, except she didn’t trust any man at all. Gina’s father had pushed her down the stairs when she was twenty, and everyone said the fall had left her a little off. Gina touched the piece of paper through her jeans, felt it crinkle. Finally Chase sighed, and pushed himself to his feet.

“I better go call the judge, then,” he said. “Say I’m not coming.”

Gina watched him go, past the table where the truck driver sat alone, to the line for the pay phone on the wall. She thought about calling her mother, but her mother wouldn’t be expecting her yet. If she called now she would worry.

“You feeling okay, honey?” Al’s wife asked her. “You look pale.”

Al’s wife had the dried-up look of long winters in smoky truck stops, and Gina thought she must look pretty rough to alarm her. But there was concern in the woman’s voice, and Gina was grateful for it.

“I guess I don’t feel so good,” Gina said.

“What’re you going on your guy’s trip for if you don’t feel good?”

Gina held her hands in her lap and knew by the word “guy” that their ringlessness had been noted. “I was going to visit my mother,” she said.

Chase always said Gina was not her mother, but sometimes Gina had to be in the same room with her to make sure they were not the same person and she would not end up damaged, jobless and alone. Gina had started scanning the classifieds for waitressing jobs again—a compulsion, after ten years of teaching, but just to be sure.