The ambulance was traveling so fast, her father could barely keep up. She was sitting in the middle of the back seat, no seat belt, so she could see over the front seat. Soon, the lights were fading up ahead, and her father pulled off at the next exit. “I can’t keep up,” he said. “Gonna grab a cup of coffee and then we’ll go see your mom.” His face was of cheer in that greasy truck stop diner. No mention of his wife, with cancer, who had just been taken by ambulance from the girl’s grandmother’s house where she had been receiving her care. No mention of her complications. No mention of the inevitable, and no signs of postponement either. Simply cheerful laughter and a lot of “Oh no, these aren’t my grandchildren, they are my children!” with stern incredulity. She sat at the diner’s coffee bar with her father, surrounded by truckers who kept pinching her cheeks saying, “What a cute girl!” It wouldn’t be until later that she would realize that men, dirty old trucker men, men with spades and back hoes, married men, men with Bibles, and even married men with Bibles longed for girls and women like her and this tiny roadside diner would not be the last time that men would grab her with that license that so many of them believe they are born with.

***