The Hitchhiker I Did Not Pick Up Was Standing At The Cemetery Gate In The Morning

I did not pick him up because it was midnight and I am a woman on my own and I have a mother who raised me properly.

He was standing at the junction by the old mill. Long coat. Canvas bag over the shoulder. He raised a hand — not a thumb, a hand, flat, like a man greeting a neighbour.

I drove past and I felt bad about it for about six miles, which is the correct amount of time to feel bad about doing the sensible thing.

The next morning I drove out to the cemetery, because it was my father's anniversary and because I take him a plant that he would have said was a waste of money.

He was standing at the cemetery gate. Same coat, same bag.

Twelve miles from the junction. On foot, at night, in the rain, that is not impossible — it is four or five hours — and I want to be fair to reality here.

I stopped. I do not know why. I stopped and I put the window down and I said, "Did you walk?"

And he said — and this is the first sentence, and he said it as if we were continuing a conversation — "You couldn't have stopped last night. It wasn't the night for it."