At one point, while driving south through Colorado, I stopped for lunch and tried calling Mom again. There was no answer, so on impulse I called Dawson and Sons.
"Good morning. Thanks for calling Dawson and Sons. How can I help you?"
"Morning, Glenda. Is my mom around?"
"Bobby? Where are you? Things are falling apart here. You need to come back."
"Not happening right now. Is Mom there?"
She transferred me.
"Bob," Mom said. "Where are you?"
Again, I gave her a false location. It was not personal. I simply was not ready to be found.
"You need to come home," she said.
"I need time. If I come back now and end up in the same room with Dad or David, I'm afraid I'll do something I'll regret."
"Could you at least call Sonia? I'm worried about her."
"She created this mess. She can deal with it."
"I'm serious. I'm afraid she might hurt herself."
That stopped me for a moment, but anger took over again.
"From my perspective, she made her choices. Please stop bringing her up."
Mom tried to argue. I cut her off and ended the call before I said something worse.
I drove south without a destination. Around midafternoon, I stopped at a truck stop for fuel and food. As I sat in the car, someone tapped on my window.
A young woman stood outside. She looked barely out of her teens, frightened, exhausted, and embarrassed. I lowered the window and asked what she needed.
She glanced around and struggled for several seconds before speaking.
"This is really hard for me," she said. "I'm starving. I haven't eaten in two days. I was going to offer you something for twenty dollars just so I could buy food."
I started to roll up the window, not because I was angry, but because I wanted no part of that kind of bargain. Then I saw the disappointment on her face, got out of the car, and invited her inside the truck stop restaurant instead.
Her name was Maggie Toman. We barely spoke until we were sitting in a booth. When the waitress came, Maggie ordered a burger and fries. I suggested a full steak dinner instead because it would last her longer, and eventually she agreed.
Over the meal, she told me she had just turned eighteen and was running from an abusive home. Her stepfather had threatened her repeatedly, and her mother, trapped in addiction, had refused to protect her. Maggie had taken what cash she could find and left, hoping to reach Houston where her sister lived.
Maggie had originally boarded a bus believing it would take her toward Houston, but exhaustion caught up with her and she fell asleep. By the time she understood where she was, she had ended up in Denver instead of anywhere near her sister. During that confusion, someone stole her purse. Her phone, identification, and nearly all the money she had taken when she ran were gone.
She had been too frightened to return home and too broke to continue. For two days she had drifted between public places trying to decide what to do, eating almost nothing, until hunger finally pushed her into making the desperate offer she made at my car window.
I told her I was heading south anyway and offered to take her to Houston. She was nervous but accepted.
Later, during a stop for food and fuel, I let her use my phone to call her sister. I stepped away so she could speak privately. When I returned, Maggie said her sister was eager to see her and that their mother had also been trying to locate her.
"You should probably call your mom eventually," I said.
"Maybe in a few days," she replied. "I'm not ready yet."
Once we were back on the road, Maggie turned the questions toward me.
"You've heard my story. What's yours?"
So I told her. I told her about Sonia, my father, David, the business, and why I was driving across the country with no real destination.
Maggie listened in stunned silence.
"Your father and your brother?" she finally asked. "And you just left?"
"After what happened, leaving felt like the only thing I could do without making things even worse."
She asked whether I had ever considered the possibility that Sonia had been pressured or manipulated.
"I don't believe she was forced," I said. "I saw enough to think she was participating willingly. If there was more to it, she could have told me. Maybe someday I'll hear her out, but I'm not ready now."
We drove until evening, stopping only for fuel and food. Maggie was quieter after telling me about her stepfather, but as the miles passed she began asking questions about the places we drove through, and by the time we checked into a modest motel she was no longer staring at every stranger as if they might drag her back home.
I took a room with two beds because I wanted the arrangement to be unmistakably safe. After a shower, however, Maggie climbed into my bed and tried to become intimate. I stopped her immediately and told her that the twenty-dollar offer she had made at the truck stop no longer existed. She owed me nothing for dinner, the ride, the room, or anything else.
Maggie insisted she understood. She said she was not trying to repay me, and that she wanted closeness because it was her decision now, not something desperation had forced her to offer earlier.
I stopped her at first and made it clear she owed me nothing. She insisted that her decision was voluntary. I was lonely, angry, and emotionally untethered from my marriage, and in the end we became intimate.
The next day, we ate a quick breakfast and continued south. Because arriving at her sister's house in the middle of the night made little sense, we stopped again around nine rather than pushing until two in the morning. By then Maggie had spoken to her sister again and knew someone would be waiting for her the following day.
When we finally reached Houston, I drove to the address Maggie gave me and stopped outside her sister's place. She looked disappointed when I said I would not come inside.
"I like you," I told her, "but I don't know what comes next for me. I need to keep moving."
She kissed me goodbye, thanked me, and went inside. I watched until the door closed behind her.
I checked into another motel and ate alone at a nearby restaurant. Afterward, I decided that San Antonio and the Alamo sounded like as good a destination as any.
About half an hour outside Columbus, I saw a disabled car on the side of the road with a man and a woman trying to flag down help. I stopped.
The man introduced himself as Ray and climbed into the front passenger seat. The woman, Sarah, sat in the back. We had not gone far before Ray suddenly produced a knife and demanded my money and the car.
I was armed, but before the confrontation could escalate further, Sarah reacted. She used the strap of her purse to restrain Ray long enough for me to pull onto a dirt road and stop the car. By the time I opened the passenger door, Ray was dazed and no longer in control of the situation.
I took the knife away and got him out of the car. I made sure he was still alive, then left him away from the roadway where he could eventually be found. I was angry enough to humiliate him before leaving, but I did not stay around to see what happened next.
Sarah moved into the front passenger seat.