“It’s sad,” Karen commented as we waited to be checked out, her voice full of sincerity. Sarah and I shook our heads in pity.

We were on a road trip to the Oregon Coast, excited to free ourselves from the constraints of motherhood for two days. Sarah thought it would be good to beat Friday traffic, so we left Thursday night. Three hours of terrible traffic later I was carsick, typical. I finally asked to stop. The Dramamine hadn’t kicked in; maybe some crackers and ginger ale would help.

It was late when we pulled into Astoria, and the town seemed eerily abandoned, not at all what I had imagined. Was this Lewis and Clark’s first impression of the Pacific? How depressing. We passed a mom and pop grocer that had a half lit neon sign with the letters “OP- -” blinking. I turned up my nose and waved my arm like a traffic cop to keep driving. The bright lights and familiar logo of the Shell station up ahead had caught my eye.

As fate would have it, or as Sarah liked to remind me, You’re a magnet for anyone that needs something, when the minivan door slid open, a young woman, thin and disheveled, approached us. “We ran out of gas.” She motioned toward the green beater, which reminded me of a Datsan my family had growing up. I hated that car. An older man, overweight in jeans and a white dirty t-shirt glanced our way. He was slouched in the passenger seat with the door open, fresh despair radiating our way. “Anything would help,” she said.

I brushed her off, “Maybe on our way out.”

We quickly made our way into the safety of fluorescent lighting. Karen had been the first to speak, noting the sadness of their situation. While we waited to check out, she paused as if to emphasize her next point. “But don’t give her money. You know she probably is just going to use it for drugs. Did you see the creeper in the passenger seat? He looked too old to be her boyfriend.” The attendant at the minimart raised an eyebrow and nodded in approval overhearing our loud whisperings as she rang up our items. I thought, “Now this lady here- she’s probably the one shooting heroin.” It all seemed so odd and out of place, like the perfect setup for a bad ending if we weren’t careful.

Sarah caught me by the arm as I pushed the door to exit. “I’m going to give her some money. She reminds me of my sister.” I knew Sarah’s sister to be a recovered addict. She took a ten out of her wallet. I already had my hand on a crisp five and pressed it into Sarah’s hand with a shrug and a knowing look. Sarah knew my brother to be a dead addict. She walked directly over to the young girl without saying anything and gave her the $15. The woman was standing outside her car, anxiously looking over her shoulder as if she was expecting someone. I felt nervous too. Why was I so jittery? As Sarah turned away, a grateful voice called out to us, “Thank you so much. You don’t know how much this helps!”

I hoped that was the end of that and Sarah wouldn’t want to have a long conversation about her sister and addicts. “Bethany used to be just like her you know, asking strangers for money.” I began to zone out. Conversation about addiction was not on my list for a girls’ weekend. As we pulled out of the parking lot, Karen glanced back in astonishment, “Hey look! They are pushing their car to the pump. They really were out of gas.”

The sky opened and the rain poured down on us for the last 45minutes of the drive. With visibility hindered, Karen gripped the steering wheel tight, and I fixated on the road scanning for danger. “Watch out! Water ahead!” I yelled. Karen swerved just missing a large pool of standing water. The van hugged the shoulder so close I gasped at the sight of the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean on the rocks below.