I Stayed in the Driver’s Seat After the Engine Was Off

Dear Delyara, It wasn’t for long. Maybe seven minutes. The house was right there. The evening was waiting. But I stayed in the driver’s seat with the engine off and the keys in my hand because I could not yet make myself cross from one set of demands into the next. I watched the wind move the hedge. I listened to nothing. I felt strangely peaceful and strangely ashamed of how peaceful it felt. Because the quiet of the parked car gave me something the house often doesn’t: a pause with no requests inside it. I went in eventually. But for those seven minutes, I belonged only to myself.