Few minutes later he yawns so big a yawn that his eyes squeeze tight and tears come and he tries opening them but for a couple of seconds can’t and he thinks Jesus, what is he, that tired? doesn’t want to stop but might have to — concentrate, concentrate, and while he’s staring front, head pitched a little over the wheel, trying to keep his eyes from closing like that again, he yawns, tries to stop it and is suddenly out, he thinks after he snaps awake, he’s been out, unconscious, but for how long? seconds, even a half minute, a minute, just sitting here sleeping but holding the wheel straight where it didn’t leave the lane. Checks and no cars around so nothing much would have happened if he did go into one of the next lanes and then awakened. But never happened, this. Or happened once, on a trip with his wife before she was his wife and they had kids, eleven hours on the road and he’d driven most of them and forty or so miles from the bungalow on a private cove they’d rented for a month…anyway, stop at the next rest stop. And that was eleven hours, since early morning, so they probably didn’t have enough sleep night before and had tired themselves out a little packing and loading for the trip and cleaning the apartment for the couple subletting it for the month, trying to make it in one day to avoid the costs of an overnight stay and to take full advantage of the cottage’s thirty-one-day lease. That’s right, think like that, of anything to stay awake, or stop on the shoulder to rest his eyes a few minutes, nap for ten, that’d refresh him, and kids won’t mind that much. But you never know. He sometimes gets scared like this. Car coming along could go off the road right into them, thinking it was another lane. Not that but a car in the slow lane might come too close or some thugs might stop to rob him, guys like those guys in the car before. They see a man and his kids: easy target, back up on the shoulder, “Say, you don’t have a jack we can use, for we think we have a flat,” bam, out comes the gun. Sometimes he wishes he kept a weapon in the car to protect himself, like mace. But then the kids could get hold of it accidentally or out of curiosity and then what? That could happen, much as he might warn them. So a baseball bat. Anyway, still thinking, and feeling more alert. Radio, and turns it on. He’ll take any show this time, religious, ridiculous call-in, but can’t pick up anything but two stations with the same kind of thumping music that makes him irritable it’s so ugly, and it’ll wake Julie, so turns it off. Talk. Whispers “Margo?” but she doesn’t answer. “Margo? Margo?” Quickly turns around and sees they’re both asleep. Just a glimpse of them, but little angels; at what age does that look stop? Next rest area shouldn’t be that far off, five, ten miles — forgets when he saw the last sign for one and how many miles it said next area was, but he’s definitely going to stop, piss, wash his face, have two coffees or just a big large one, though he’s not yawning anymore so maybe the crisis is over, though still stop.