Dawn creeps up on me. Maybe I’ve slept again, because suddenly the trees and fences, the barns, and the cattle standing in the fields are distinct. Color eases its way into the landscape. I still don’t know where I am, but it’s pretty. I’m on the wrong side of the bus to read the signs that might let me know how much farther I have to go.

The woman beside me suddenly startles herself awake with a violent jerk of her legs and hands. “Oh!” She looks at me sheepishly and wipes the drool from her chin with the back of her hand. “Where are we?”

“Don’t know. Not there yet.” I excuse myself, climb over her, and make for the stinky rest room.

When I get back, my seat companion stands up to let me climb back into my place. She’s a large woman, in her fifties, if I was to guess. She wears a loose dress clearly chosen for its traveling comfort and not the fact that it makes her look nine times bigger than she is. She fumbles around in a cloth grocery bag until she extracts a can of Coke and a banana. “I got more. Want one?”

I’m not proud. I’m really thirsty, so I say yes. The Coke is sweet and hardly my morning drink of choice, but it burns through the cotton in my mouth and makes me feel less gross.

“I’m heading for Springfield, going to see my grandkids. Where you heading?”

We haven’t even exchanged names, but the rules of the road are clear: story time.

“New Bedford.”

“Never been there. Went to the Cape once. But mostly we go to Canada for vacation.” My companion needs nothing further from me. She chatters happily on and on. I wonder how close we are to Springfield. I wonder if this is her normal way, or whether she’s quiet at home, keeping to herself, baking those pies for the church supper, minding her own business. But traveling by herself to visit kids she probably rarely sees opens something up in her and the floodgates of talk gush open. Kids, grandkids, little Mikey’s First Communion. I’m not even listening when she tires of herself and asks me the inevitable woman-to-woman question: “You got kids?”

The question is a normal one. She’s handed the deck to me. My turn to deal story now. “A son. He’s grown.” I don’t say grown and gone. He was gone and then grown. “Tony.”

“Where’s your boy now?”

This is a hard question. Before I have to answer with some tepid reply, my phone plays its little tune and I fish it out of my pocket, that little compulsive prayer that it be Artie singing along with the tune: Let it be Art-tie. Please be Art-tie. I don’t even look at the display to see who it is. The woman beside me presses back against her seat, as if that gives me privacy.

“He’s going to a warehouse to leave the trailer.” Candy gives me the address, and I know Boston well enough to recognize a street along the harbor, near or even in Southie. Not terribly far from South Station. A cab ride, a good walk. I thank her and promise to keep her posted. I can’t find any paper in my duffel, so I write the address down on the palm of my hand. The bus schedule I have doesn’t tell me anything about buses from Boston to New Bedford, but I know they must be fairly frequent. We’re entering Springfield now. Boston is at most two hours away. At the least, Artie got there at night and may still be asleep in his cab. I press a hand to my chest to feel the impulsive beating of my racing heart. I feel like this is that TV show, The Amazing Race. I’m closing in. Maybe I’ll catch him. Maybe this will all fade to a bad dream in a few hours. I’ll have my boy back. My Mack. He’ll jump into my arms like he does at the end of our performances, overjoyed. A furry bundle of wiggles and kisses.