On a dark night long ago, I was driving up from Tahlequah when our old Mercury suddenly stopped running.

It happened just about at the highway’s fork with Wax Orchard Road. This was in the time before we all had cell phones. I don’t remember there being other cars, but before long one coming south down Wax Orchard pulled over and a woman about my age asked if I needed help — which I definitely did.

Marie (for that was her name) pulled her car around, and gave me a lift all the way back to Vashon Town. The details of the incident after that are lost in the mists of time, but it all worked out okay. Back then, I thought of Marie as an angel, but she was better than an angel in a way: She was an ordinary person acting in solidarity with a fellow human being in need. It was the kind of every

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