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lined with check cashing stores, auto repair shops, Laundromats, and liquor stores. When the bus passed the sprawling complex of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, she turned away from the window.
    It had begun to rain by the time the bus turned onto the freeway, and then there was nothing to see but the blur of billboards and white headlights and red taillights.
    She closed her eyes. Did she sleep? For how long? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t even sure what made her open her eyes. But when she did, she turned her head and looked into the face of the old man.
    He was holding a thermos and pouring something carefully into a small paper cup. He looked over at her, and then held out the cup to her across the aisle.
    “Would you like a sip, miss?” he asked.
    “What?” She was so tired she could barely speak.
    “You look like you could use a little of this,” he said.
    In the dim beam of the overhead light she could barely make out his face. It was sad and deeply lined, like one of those old drama masks, the ones that represented tragedy and comedy.
    What had made her think of that?
    “What is it?” she asked.
    “A little courage for the journey ahead,” he said. The mask creased up into a smile. “Go ahead. I’ve got more cups.”
    She accepted the cup and took a sip.
    It took a moment but then the taste registered on her tongue. Red wine. Sweet. The taste triggered something in her head, someone speaking a foreign language. And she could see a big open window with two oranges and a bottle of wine on the sill and a view of blue water beyond. She took another drink and let the wine flood down through her body. She finished the wine and passed the cup back to the man.
    “Thank you,” she said.
    He screwed the top back on the thermos and set it under the seat. Then he tucked the Army fatigue jacket over the shoulders of the sleeping boy. He leaned his head back against the seat and slanted his eyes toward her.
    “Where you headed, miss?” he asked.
    “North Carolina,” she said.
    “Got family there?”
    The feeling of floating in the blue-green bubble came back to her again, and she remembered that she had someone who had saved her from drowning and a mother who had told her about it. Was her mother still alive?
    “Yes,” she said softly. I hope so.
    Her eyes went beyond the old man to the sleeping boy. With a start she realized she didn’t even know if she had children. If she had a child, how could she possibly be running away like this? How could she leave a child?
    She shut her eyes and desperately tried to summon up a child’s face, a name, a smell, but there was nothing there, there was no one there. She felt that in her soul. She let out a long breath of relief.
    “You all right, miss?”
    She turned her head and gave the old man a nod. She looked again at the boy. “How old is your boy?” she asked softly.
    “He’s seven,” the man said. “It’s been a long day for him. We started out in Miami this morning, but the bus broke down twenty minutes out and we had to wait two hours for the other bus to come, which took us backward instead of forward. So then we finally got on this bus in Fort Lauderdale and here we are.”
    She nodded. It was getting hard to keep her eyes open. The rain had turned into heavy pelting drops that smacked against the window and turned the car lights beyond into red streaks in the black.
    “Would you like a cookie, miss?”
    When she turned back to the old man, he was holding out an open package of Fig Newtons. She started to reach across to take one but then drew her hand back. Another voice was there in her head.
    You don’t need that. Put that back, Jelly-Belly.
    “Go ahead. We got plenty,” the old man said.
    She took a cookie but didn’t eat it, instead looking back out the window. She saw a flash of a sign in the darkness, an exit to some place called “Stuart.”
    “My great-grandson loves his Fig Newtons,” the old man said.
    The sudden sadness in