Christy glanced in the rearview mirror. “Sometimes. Why?”

They drove in silence for the first ten minutes. The woman stared out the window, watching the city lights blur into streaks of orange and white. Christy didn’t push. She’d learned that silence was its own kind of language.

One rainy Tuesday evening, Christy picked up a fare from the Amtrak station. A young woman, maybe twenty-five, dragging a suitcase with a broken wheel and wearing a coat too thin for November. She looked like she’d been crying, but not recently—more like the crying had settled into her bones.

Finally, the woman spoke. “Do you ever pick up the same person twice?”

“Long ride,” Christy said. “Buckle up.”