The traffic on Cannonfield is still dense, but there seem to be slightly longer intervals between cars now. With new hope, Lori waits. She notices that the sunlight is changing, taking on a warmer, angular quality. Across Cannonfield is a wall of trees. This is still considered the country, more or less, and it comforts her somehow to know that there are birds in these trees, and any number of undiseased rodents. Lori lets her eyes blur out of focus as she stares at the deep green foliage, discerning patches of shade and light. She sits like this for a long moment, until a movement in her frame of vision catches her attention, and she is startled to notice a vehicle in her rearview mirror. It is surprising, really, that no unlucky driver has yet gotten stuck behind her. Now she feels the renewed anxiety of her situation, compounded by the presence of a waiting stranger in a black BMW. She sits up straight and returns her attention to the physics of approaching traffic. How frustrating that the driver behind her has no way of knowing how long she’s been sitting here, how laughably impossible this left turn has been, how stupendously patient she is.
The cars continue to flow steadily in both directions. Finally, a space approaches—it is tight, yes, but it’s now or never—and Lori’s foot again does not respond to the command to accelerate. There must be some contradictory command interfering with it, beyond her conscious control. For an instant, Lori understands herself as a split being, with a gulf between her voluntary and involuntary selves, between that which can be helped and that which cannot.
She glances at the mirror, sending an invisible apology to the driver behind her. And yet when another eligible space approaches, she again lets it pass, dumbfounded. The BMW honks and, at last, pulls alongside her, idles for a moment, and moves ahead onto Cannonfield, making a smooth left turn and disappearing around the bend. Lori feels her face flush in humiliation. Really, it couldn’t have hurt the BMW to wait more patiently. Sometimes other drivers are terrible, forgetful of their shared humanity, their common fallibility. Too many people honk the instant a light turns green, make responsible people feel incompetent.
And yet, what is wrong with her today? She has never been so timid behind the wheel. It’s as if she’s entered a variation of that common nightmare: anchored feet, the sucking of quicksand. The stop sign looms, its message like an existential injunction for her alone. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. The thing to do is relax. It will do no good to think of the passing time, of the fact that the day is now visibly darkening, the patterns of sunlight disappearing from the road and trees.
Now, another car comes up behind her. It lurks in her rearview mirror, its black grille scowling at the back of her head. A moment later, another appears behind that, and then another. Two, three—maybe more—drivers are now depending on Lori’s judgment, Lori’s decisiveness, Lori’s lifetime of experience on the road. They have places to be, perhaps urgently. Lori struggles to keep her focus on the streaming traffic, but her heart is pounding too heavily now, the blood surging in her skull, and her vision seems strangely blurred, her depth perception skewed. With a trembling hand, she presses the hazard button on the dashboard. A moment later, the first car noses tentatively alongside her and passes, followed by the others.
The clack of the hazards is stereophonic and insistent, overruling the turn signal’s tinny tick. Lori holds her foot firmly on the brake and draws a long breath, relieved to be alone again with her stop sign. She finally allows herself to glance at the dashboard clock: 6:50. A shot of terror goes through her body. The party begins in ten minutes. Mitch will already be dressed, even as Mason continues to goof in his room. Without Lori there to nag, Mitch will have to be the one to remind him to change out of his sweat-stained T-shirt, to put on something befitting the son of a managing director. Lori pictures her husband in a clean shirt and chinos, face re-shaven, checking the Rolex she bought him as a birthday gift that summer with the excess of money he’d earned. The watch is still bright gold on his wrist, its bezel notched and fluted, almost feminine. She thinks of it now with a kind of nostalgic longing as she pictures her husband pacing the floor of their kitchen, just a few miles away but bizarrely out of reach. How long will he wait, she wonders, before going to the party without her? He will, after all, have to go to the party. He will leave a note, Lori thinks, in his boyish scrawl, telling her to call the minute she gets home. Or perhaps he will wait until nightfall before phoning the Christensens, keeping the fear out of his voice as he explains the situation. Whichever Christensen answers will express concern, as party sounds jangle in the background, then offer assurance that Mitch’s wife will be home soon, that she probably just ran into a friend and lost track of time, and that they should come anytime before ten, really.