Henry leaned closer.
“Hold on,” he said. “I know this place.”
Sam turned.
“What do you mean?”
Henry tapped the frame.
“Years back, I stopped at a little diner off this highway. Best cornbread I ever had. Place had a woman who sang while pouring coffee. Man behind the grill looked like he could fix an engine with one hand and flip eggs with the other.”
Marcus went still.
Tara stopped in the aisle.
Henry squinted.
“What was her name? Tina?”
“Trina,” Marcus said quietly.
The room went quiet.
Henry turned around slowly.
“You’re that Marcus?”
Marcus tried to smile, but it came out small.
“Depends what you heard.”
Henry’s face changed.
The old driver stood.
“I heard you pulled three rigs out of a mud lot outside Emporia when nobody else wanted to lose time.”
Marcus looked away.
“That was a long time ago.”
Rick leaned forward.
“Bennett,” he said. “Marcus Bennett?”
Sam looked from Rick to Marcus.
“You know him too?”
Rick’s eyes widened.
“I don’t know him, but I know the name. Man on the CB used to call himself Oak. Had a voice steady as a church bell. Helped drivers through bad stretches.”
Marcy set down her mug.
“Oak?” she said.
Marcus felt heat rise behind his eyes.
He had not heard that name in years.
Trina had given it to him.
“My oak tree,” she used to say. “Bent by storms, never broken.”
He had used it on the radio because it made her laugh.
Marcy stood so quickly her chair scraped the floor.
“That was you?”
Marcus did not answer.
He didn’t have to.
Marcy pressed a hand to her chest.
“You talked me through ice outside Laramie. I was twenty-four and scared stiff. You stayed on the line until I reached the bottom.”
Marcus remembered a night like that.
He remembered a young woman’s shaky voice.
