Three Million Witnesses

The baby was asleep. The old man had bowed his head.

The driver glanced at the back seat in the rearview mirror and said nothing.

The woman's lips curled with a knowing kind of contempt, and she cut me a sidelong look.

I could feel my own heartbeat slamming against my eardrums, once, then again.

I drew in a deep breath, and then I spoke.

Every word crisp and clear, in the exact same dialect she'd used.

"Ma'am, I understand you just fine."

"I'm wearing pants past my knees and a loose T-shirt. That's perfectly normal for summer."

"Those filthy things coming out of your mouth are what's in your own head. Don't throw them on me."

"And I paid my fare. I got in this car to go home, not to be cursed at by you."

The car went dead silent.

The old woman's face looked like it had just been slapped. Her mouth opened and closed, and for a long moment no sound came out.

In the end she muttered a few resentful words, turned back around, and didn't dare look at me again.

The woman turned her face to the window. The old man drew his leg back half an inch.

"Alright, alright, that's enough—"

The driver finally found his lines again. "Everybody ease up, ease up now."

"We're all one happy family here, aren't we? Nice and civil. Miss, you'll cut them some slack, yeah?"

I looked down at the camera blinking on my collar and said nothing more.

Let it record.

The baby's crying shattered the fragile quiet that had just settled over the car.

I pressed lightly at my temple and checked my phone.

Thirty minutes left.

The woman started soothing him, bouncing him in her arms, patting his back, murmuring hush, hush, hush.

But the baby wasn't buying it. He only cried harder, his little face going red with the effort.

"Is he hungry?" The old woman leaned back from the front seat and reached out to touch the baby's cheek.

Before the words had even landed, the woman had already undone her collar.

Right there in front of everyone in the car, she brought her breast to the baby's mouth.

The skin of her left arm pressed against me, sticky and damp, clinging close.

The baby latched on, and the crying cut off all at once.

Now the only sound in the car was his suckling, soft and wet.

I looked away, staring stiffly at my phone screen, and nudged the volume up another notch.

The driver flicked a glance at me in the rearview mirror.

He cleared his throat like he wanted to say something, then swallowed it back down.

Just that one cough.

The woman's eyes snapped up from the baby's face. First she skewered the driver with a look, then followed his line of sight in the mirror and landed it on me.

"Never seen someone nurse a baby? Or are you jealous?" Her voice was thin and shrill, like a nail dragged across sheet metal.

"Once you have kids of your own you'll get it. Every mother does this." She bit down hard on the word mother, her chin tipping up.

"Not like you little girls, riding in a car dressed with next to nothing on, squirming around, trying to seduce who knows who."

My fingers tightened, then let go.

I had plenty of ways to shut her down. I could have humiliated her, even.

But I didn't want to corner a mother in front of her own baby.

I lifted my head and looked her straight in the eye.

"Great motherly love doesn't need to prove itself by tearing down other women."

"I respect you. Please respect yourself."

The woman froze. Her mouth hung open, all that sharp venom she'd lined up shoved right back down her throat.

Her face began to flush, and then she whipped toward the driver's seat.

"Who asked you to butt in? Who do you think I did all this for? And you've got the nerve to talk about me?" Her voice was three times louder than when she'd been cursing me.

"Don't be upset, honey, it's all my fault." The driver ducked his head, practiced at it. "The young lady only said she respects you. Don't be mad, don't be mad, okay?"

"We're almost at the rest stop. I'll pull over for a bit and we'll all take a break."

I glanced out the window at the road signs whipping past.

Next stop, four kilometers.

The car turned onto a ramp and slowly came to a stop.

There wasn't a soul around.

This wasn't the highway rest stop. It was a run-down roadside lot off a county road.

I got out, walked to a corner not far from the car, and tried to pin down my location for a ride.

The little circle on the screen spun and spun.

Thirty seconds. A minute. Five minutes.

I screenshotted my location, opened the green chat app, and tapped into the conversation pinned at the top.

My boyfriend, Carl Floyd.

"A rideshare driver dragged me out to some remote lot. Save my location for me." I typed out the lines.

He replied fast. "Stay safe. Call me the second anything's wrong."