What a difference a night could make. When I waved to Molly as she got out of her tent, I half expected her to turn the other way and try to ignore me. She wasn’t interested in any sort of conversation last night, and I expected that to continue. I figured I’d have to really turn on the charm to get her to talk to me. Instead, with very little effort on my part, she agreed to have coffee with me, and then allow me to introduce her to Julie and Kyle. Sure, she was still closed off, and not very talkative, but at least she was willing to let me try to help her.

“The car is right down this way a little further,” she said when we got out on the main highway. “Do you think you’ll be able to tell what’s wrong with her?”

I shrugged. I was a writer, not a mechanic, and I might be in over my head. “I don’t know, but it’s worth a try. If I can’t, we can all Jason,” I said. “He lives at the resort, and he works as a mechanic at a body shop in town. He’s much handier than me. People say he can fix anything.” As far as I’d been able to tell, he had a bit of a shady past, but no doubt knew cars better than I did.

“Thank you. I appreciate it. I wasn’t sure I’d get anyone to look at her on the weekend.” She pointed ahead. “There she is.”

It was an old Toyota with a dented fender. My early, uneducated impression was that the car had seen better days, and they’d been a while ago. “Okay.” Seeing no oncoming traffic in the other line, I turned into it, and then pulled my car to a stop behind it. “What happened, anyway? Was it making any funny noise? Any smoke coming out?”

“No smoke, just kind of a jerky, sputtering sound,” she said. “And then she just died.”

I couldn’t help but noticed Molly kept referring to the vehicle using a female pronoun. “She?” I asked, amused. “Your car is a she?”

“Yes. Her name is Nellie.”

“Alrighty, then.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“What? Your car doesn’t have a name?”

I stared at the dash of my Mazda CX-5, which I loved, but never considered naming. I mean, for starters, how was I supposed to know whether it was male or female? Cars didn’t have dicks or boobs. They were just cars. Weren’t they? “No. Can’t say that I have.” I turned off the engine and opened the door. “Let’s go check Nellie out.”

I walked over to the car. Aside from the dented fender, it didn’t look too bad, but I could tell it was an older model. “What year is ole Nellie here?”

“1997. Only six years younger than me.”

Yeah, the car was old, but that meant Molly wasn’t. I did the quick math in my head. If she was twenty-six, and Timmy was almost seven, then she’d been a very young mother. She was also way too young to be a widow. I longed to know her story, but I wouldn’t pry. “Got the keys?”

“Right here.” Molly handed them to me, and I got inside the car but didn’t shut the door. “It’s not going to start,” she said. “I already tried. Several times.” She sounded a little defensive about it.

“I’m sure you did. That’s not the point.” I believed her that it wouldn’t start, and sure enough, when I put the key in the ignition and turned it, I could hear the engine crank, but nothing else. I tried again, and got the same result.

“See, I told you. That’s the same thing that happened to me.”

“Yeah.” I removed the key and got out of the car. “My completely unscientific, gut instinct is that your fuel pump is shot.”

“What does that mean?” Molly asked. “Sorry, I’m clueless about cars. We were young, and my husband was gone a lot, but he said this would be a good car.” She shook her head, with what the writer in me would describe as sadness, and I wondered if it was for the car, or for her husband. Or both?

“And I’m sure she has been,” I said, remembering that the twenty-year-old car with the busted fuel pump was apparently a female, even I hadn’t seen any boobs. “She can be again, too. These are good cars. Pop a new fuel pump in her, and I bet you can get a few more years out of her. If you want to, that is.” To me, it wouldn’t make much sense, not with a car that old, but then again, I didn’t get sentimentally attached to my vehicles or give them names.

I tried for a teasing smile. “We don’t necessarily have to bury Nellie yet.”

“You say that like it’s no big deal, but to me, it is,” she said. “How much does a new fuel pump cost, anyway?”

I considered it for a few seconds before shrugging. “I’m not sure. Maybe five hundred to a thousand, plus labor?” I honestly had no idea, and regretted that I’d made it sound like nothing. If your financial situation was dire, as I suspected hers was, then it wasn’t nothing at all. It was a pretty big deal.

“Oh, great! Like I can afford that?”

“I don’t know.” I took a step back and held up my hands. I wasn’t trying to give her grim news, and I sensed times were tough, but it wasn’t like I knew much about her, her finances, or her plans. “Where are you trying to get to? Could you maybe rent a car, and then see about the repairs?” If she was in a hurry, it seemed like a decent option.

Molly shook her head. “No, that won’t work. I’m trying to get to Chesapeake, Virginia, where my in-laws are. I mean my former in-laws. I can’t just charge a rental car, though. It’s not that easy. At least not for me.”

All right. Maybe her credit card was maxed, or perhaps she didn’t even have one. I was probably assuming too much. “Can you ask them for the money, then?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Molly sounded incredulous. “They already think it was a mistake for Dustin to get involved with me so early, and that I wasn’t worthy of him, or whatever,” she said. “But I got pregnant, we got married, Timmy was born, and things were great, at least for a while. Then Dustin off to war, and ‘bam.’ I mean, they don’t blame me for his death, or anything, but still... He’s dead, I had his kid, and here I am, trying to them for help. I know they think I can’t make it on my own, and now I’m proving them right.”

“Wait a minute. Who says you can’t?”

“Me. I do. I mean, look at me. I’m stranded on the highway, broke, and with a broken-down car. And they’re supposed to bail me out?” I watched her body shake as tears formed in her eyes. “It just shows I wasn’t worthy of him. I’m a loser. I can’t do it.”

There was the ‘can’t’ again, and I hated hearing that word. I moved closer to her, and pulled her into my arms. “You absolutely can do it,” I said. “Maybe you’ll need a little help at first, but you can do it.”

She didn’t fight my embrace, but looked up at me with tear-stained eyes. “That’s the thing. I can’t ask them for the money. I hate asking for help. From them, from you, from anybody.”

“I know. I sensed that,” I said. “How about you don’t ask, and I just offer instead?”

After a second, she nodded. “That might work.”

“Okay, then, let’s go with that. You’re not asking me anything. We’re just here, and I’m going to try to help.” I smiled. “How about we start by getting some food?”

Molly wiped the tears from her eyes as they met mine. “Yes. Food sounds good.”

“Great. There’s a café not too far from here, and the food’s good.”