Part I — Her Question

Some moments stay with you — a quiet exchange, a sudden tenderness, a question that lands deeper than words. This one hasn’t left me.

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My day with people yesterday began as I approached my Uber a little after 6am. It was an SUV, the back window filled with a black metal American flag. I got in and met a woman in her early fifties behind the wheel, welcoming and bright even this early. In the seat beside me sat an open container of pills and medications, neatly arranged — offerings for any rider’s sudden ailment. There may have been music playing; I can’t recall.

I sank into the seat with a sigh. She noticed and assumed it was heavy. I told her the truth: it was a sigh of joy — a chance to live, to work, to meet life. She smiled, appreciating it.

During the short ride, we wandered through small threads of conversation. She asked about my destination, and when I told her I worked at First Watch, she laughed softly, saying she’d first discovered the restaurant while traveling through Orlando — the same city where I had found it years ago.

From there, she began to share pieces of her journeys with her husband, some of which had led her through Charleston, the city I’ll be visiting soon. She brightened as she talked, offering small tips and reflections, excited for my own trip.

Then her tone shifted. She slowed, choosing her words carefully. She told me the drive would be long. That I’d see a different kind of living along the way — houses run-down, worn thin — “but clean,” she added with quiet conviction. Impoverished, but cared for. That detail, she said, had stayed with her.

Her voice softened as she remembered, her gaze settling somewhere distant, until finally she stopped speaking altogether. I waited, sensing something beneath the surface.

And then, as if pulled forward by memory, her eyes welled with tears.

We were nearly at my destination when she spoke again, her words breaking unevenly — carrying confusion, sorrow, and a restrained anger all at once:

“And this is America…?”

The weight of her question settled between us. Not surprise, but a stunned ache. I felt the longing in it — her vision of an America that does not exist, one without forgotten streets or forsaken people.

Inside me, a thousand thoughts stirred: histories, bloodlines, contradictions, the weight of being a young Black man soon driving the same road she had once traveled. But I stayed quiet. She was still wrestling with her memory, still searching for where it fit.

The car slowed to a stop. She blinked the tears back as the she put the car in park. We sat for a moment, shared a bit more then paused, turned to me, and reached out her hand — gratitude filling the space where words had fallen away. She thanked me for the conversation, wished me well on my day, and blessed my coming journeys.