The Driver's Seat

The truck hummed at sixty-five miles an hour on I-87, and Frank Beauregard could feel the vibration in his teeth the way he could feel the cold coming in from the Adirondacks. It was four in the morning, the kind of hour that belongs only to truck drivers and insomniacs and people who have something to run from.

Frank was neither an insomniac nor a runner. He was fifty-eight, retired from the long hauls, running a small freight operation out of Albany, and he was driving himself to Manhattan to pick up his daughter's boyfriend.

Sarah called it a "surprise." Frank called it the first mistake of the day.

Julian Park arrived at the Albany truck stop with a leather satchel and shoes that cost more than Frank's first truck. He was thirty-two, a product manager at a startup in the Valley, and he smiled the kind of smile that had been tested in focus groups.

"Mr. Beauregard," Julian said, extending a hand.

"Frank," Frank said. "Get in."

The cab smelled like diesel and old coffee and the particular musk that comes from sitting in the same seat for three hundred thousand miles. Julian adjusted his satchel on his lap and looked at the dashboard like it was a foreign language he had studied once and forgotten.

"Nice truck," Julian said.

"It runs," Frank said.

The drive north was a study in silence. Frank drove. Julian checked his phone. The phone had no signal, and Frank watched him check it again and again, the glow of the screen illuminating a face that was trying very hard not to look nervous.

At the Troy exit, Frank spoke first. "What do you do, Julian?"

"Product management."

"That's a fancy way of saying you tell engineers what to build."

Julian laughed. It was a good laugh — genuine, not the focus-grouped one. "Something like that."

"Do you know how to drive a truck?"

"No."

"Ever sat in one?"

"No."

"Then you're in the wrong seat."

Frank did not say it cruelly. He said it the way a man says the sky is grey. A statement of fact.

At the Saratoga rest stop, Julian asked about Frank's wife. Frank said she had been dead twelve years. Julian said he was sorry. Frank said sorry didn't fill a diesel tank.

At the Plattsburgh border crossing, Julian asked about the war. Frank said he didn't talk about the war. Julian dropped it.

At the Rutland stop, Julian asked what Frank did for fun. Frank said he slept. Julian asked if that was funny. Frank said no.

But then, at the Montpelier rest stop — the third one, and the one where the vending machine only took quarters and the coffee tasted like burnt pennies — Julian spoke first.

"My father died three years ago," Julian said. He was looking out at the parking lot, where a single streetlight cast a yellow pool on wet asphalt. "Pancreatic cancer. Six months from diagnosis to —" He stopped. Started again. "I didn't know. The doctors said he was fine at his checkup. Two months later, he couldn't swallow water. I was in San Francisco. He called me and I told him I'd come next week. I came two weeks later."

Frank kept his eyes on the road.

"I've been product managing since then. I tell people what to build. I optimize workflows. I talk about synergy and user experience and I sit in meetings where people use the word pivot like it's a verb and I wonder if that's what my father wanted — for me to sit in rooms and pivot things while the real world fell apart."

Frank nodded once. It was the most he had ever nodded at Julian.

"You think I'm soft," Julian said.

"I think you're scared."

Julian was quiet for a long time. Then: "You're not wrong."

The wrong turn happened by design. Frank had been planning it since Burlington. He took the exit for Middlebury instead of the one for Sarah's parents' house in the countryside, and drove down a road that had no name and no streetlights and ran along a river that Franklin County had not named on any map since 1962.

A car was pulled over on the shoulder. A young woman was standing beside it, holding a flashlight that had gone dark five minutes ago, wearing a jacket that was not warm enough for October in Vermont.

Frank stopped. He got out. Julian got out after him.

"Need help?" Frank asked.

"My car overheated. I don't know how to —" She looked at them, two men in a truck, one old and gruff, one young and uncertain, and her voice caught. "I just need to get to Burlington."

Frank opened the hood. Steam hissed out like a word released after being held too long. He looked at the radiator, at the hoses, at the belt. He could not fix it — he was not a mechanic — but he could call a tow. He used his phone. No signal. He used Julian's phone. Signal.

Julian dialed. Spoke to the tow company. Gave the location. Hang up. Turn to Frank.

"She's heading south on Route 100. Tow'll be there in forty minutes."

"Tell her," Frank said.

Julian turned to the young woman. He spoke clearly, without the product-management voice, without the focus-group smile. He told her the tow was coming. He told her to wait by the truck. He told her he would stay with her.

Frank watched from the cab. He watched Julian sit on the guardrail beside the young woman, talking in a voice Frank could not hear but could read in the way her shoulders relaxed. He watched the river run dark and cold beside them.

He put the truck in gear. He drove the right turn. He arrived at Sarah's parents' house at six in the morning, parked the truck, and sat in the driver's seat for five minutes before going inside.

Sarah was waiting on the porch. She looked at his face — he knew she could see whatever was happening inside it, because she was his daughter and she had his eyes — and said nothing.

Frank went inside. He sat at the kitchen table. He drank coffee. He did not speak for a long time.

Then: "He's a decent kid."

Sarah smiled. It was not a triumphant smile. It was the smile of someone who had known this answer all along.

Frank looked out the window at his truck. The diesel was cooling. The engine ticked. The world was changing around him — faster than he could drive, faster than he could fix, faster than he could understand — and for the first time in a long time, he did not feel the need to fight it.

The Driver's Seat

© 2026 - Authored by Z R ZHANG ( EL9507135 -- パスポート番号[ちゅうごく] 중국 여권 번호 Номер паспорта หมายเลขหนังสือเดินทาง Passnummer رقم جواز السفر CHN Passport) The aforementioned Author hereby grants to OXFORD INDUSTRIAL HOLDING GROUP (ASIA PACIFIC) CO., LIMITED （BRN74685111） all economic property rights, including but not limited to the rights of: reproduction, distribution, rental, exhibition, performance, communication to the public via information network, adaptation, compilation, commercial operation, authorization for third-party use, and rights enforcement. Such grant is exclusive and irrevocable. The term of such rights shall be 49 years from the date of publication. 联系方式： To contact author， please email to datatorent@yeah.net

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