One random taxi ride changed her life for good. Vera turned off the engine and leaned back in the driver’s seat.
The clock on the dashboard read 2:00 a.m. Outside the windshield, a fine fall rain blurred the city lights into yellow and red smears. She was parked outside a 24-hour grocery store—the only place nearby where you could still get a hot cup of coffee at that hour.
Three months. For three months she had been driving this beat-up cab she rented from Petrovich, an old friend of her father’s. For three months she had been waking up in a rented room on the edge of town, washing up in cold water—the hot water had been shut off over unpaid bills left by the last tenant—and heading out for her shift.
For three months she had tried not to think about how things used to be. “Used to be” had become shorthand for pain.
Back then she woke up in a spacious bedroom in a two-story house. Back then she drank coffee from the Italian espresso machine Dmitry had brought home from a business trip. Back then she picked out dresses for charity galas and thought happiness was something permanent, not something fragile enough to vanish overnight.
Vera rubbed her temples. The headache had been hanging on for three days. She ought to see a doctor, but that took money.
And money was needed for rent, gas, food. For medicine for her mother, who was in the regional hospital recovering from a stroke and still didn’t know what had happened to her daughter. The phone on the passenger seat chimed—a new fare.
An address downtown, in an expensive neighborhood. Vera started the car and pulled onto the empty street. As she drove, she thought about how strange life could be.
A year ago, she had been the one calling for a ride so she wouldn’t have to drive after a glass of champagne at some reception. She smiled at drivers, tipped well, and never once stopped to wonder who these people were or why they were working while everyone else slept. Now she knew.
They worked because nights brought more fares and less competition. They worked because daytime was for trying to find a regular job, and who exactly was hiring a forty-three-year-old woman with no recent work history? Twenty years of marriage.
For twenty years she had been the wife of a successful businessman, the keeper of the home, a mother—until their daughter grew up and left to study abroad. And then? Then what happened, happened. Vera pulled up to the address: an old building with decorative stonework, a doorman at the entrance.
A man in an expensive overcoat came out, slid into the back seat. He smelled of good cologne and cigar smoke—a scent Vera remembered from the business dinners she used to attend with her husband.
“Train station,” the passenger said without looking at her. “My train leaves at 3:15.”
Vera nodded and pulled away. The passenger immediately took out his phone and started talking loudly, without the slightest concern for who might hear. That was how people talked when they were used to treating service workers like wallpaper.
At first she didn’t pay attention. Night passengers talked about all kinds of things. Work. Money. Women. But then one name made her stiffen and tighten her grip on the wheel.
“Yeah, Dmitry handled it exactly right. I’m telling you, the setup worked. The hearing went through without a hitch. She never had a clue.”
Dmitry. It could have been a coincidence. There had to be thousands of Dmitrys in the world. But Vera’s heart was already pounding hard enough to hurt.
“We moved the assets through Granite, just like we planned. Half of it’s already offshore. The wife—the ex-wife—walked away with basically nothing. Even her lawyer couldn’t do much, though he tried. But the paperwork was clean. You know how it goes.”
Vera nearly drifted into oncoming traffic. She jerked the wheel and hit the brakes.
“Hey, easy!” the passenger snapped. “What kind of driving is that?”
