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It wasn't until long past Albany he said, "Look, I'm sorry I said what I said." The darkness pressed in against the windshield and only an occasional red tail-light or a distant farmhouse window gave the world any shape. Jason, his eyes fixed on the beam of his headlights, breathed evenly. The tires hummed on the pavement, the long rig glided smoothly through the night.
"Well?" he finally said. She didn't budge. "JC, look at me. Please." Slowly she let her profile face him, but no more. He sighed. "Okay, JC. But just hear what I have to say. Your friend Marci and me are very much alike. Both of us didn't have homes, we didn't trust the world, we didn't love much of anything. Too hard, and you can get hit between the eyes only so many times. And it's my guess, though it's only a guess, that she really wasn't afraid of dying. Oh, she probably didn't want to leave the scene anymore than we do, but she probably knew that dying is just part of the game, one of the risks to take when you decide to live. And she lived, didn't she? She saw all kinds of life, and all sort of people, including you...."
"But she should have had a lot of years left," JC muttered.
A flicker of pain and kindness swept over his face. "The important thing is that she lived what she had right to the hilt. Know what I mean? Right to the top. She went from day to day and sucked all she could out of it." He gripped the steering wheel with both hands and peered into the darkness. "Don't you see what she's saying to you? She doesn't want you to melt over her, mess your life up. Do you think she would lose any time over you? Not a lot. She'd go straight on. Do you see what I mean? The important thing in life is to keep going on with it. Take what you can from your friend and use it. Just like Freezing Moon." He turned to her. "The only way Marci lives is if you live. Otherwise, she's really dead." The air outside the cab whistled, the rig rocked on its springs. "I talk too much."
JC, not saying a word, looked him full in the face and smiled. He smiled back. She slept all the way past Utica to Syracuse.
* * *
When they got to Syracuse they stopped for something to eat. JC insisted that they stop at a McDonald's. When they climbed back into the truck JC was laughing at some joke Jason told her about a man with a three-legged dog. They pulled neatly out of the parking lot and as they went down the streets looking for the highway entrance ramp, she saw the train station she been in only a few days before and knew that she'd been in Syracuse, and knew that she knew something important.
They were on their way to Cortland. JC was about to ask where he was going when he spoke out, "I know I told you I was going straight to Cleveland but it's time for you to go home. I'm not due there until whatever a.m., and who cares if I'm late?" He pointed at the empty road. "I'll say it was the traffic." JC, tired, agreed.
The ride home was uneventful. She fell asleep wondering how Jason always managed to stay awake, woke up again to see the lights of Cortland flicker by, dozed, and then popped awake as Jason pulled through the familiar streets of downtown. She gave him the directions to her house. When he drew up to the curb she leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He got out, opened the door for her, clutched her bag, and hefted her down. They stood and looked at each other for a moment, then JC stuck out her hand and said, "To Marci." Jason smiled, shook her hand, and said, "To Freezing Moon."
As he left the curb she watched until she could see no more of his red tail-lights. Then lifting her bag she faced her house, sitting quietly in the dark of early morning. There was a single light on in the living room. There were butterflies in her stomach, but her heart and head felt peaceful.
She walked quickly across the street and up the stairs. With a slight hesitation, but only the slightest, she knocked firmly on the door, and waited calmly for the sound of footsteps.
