She managed a laugh. “Yeah, I’ll call. Thanks, Carol.”
Samantha sat alone in her chilly car for a minute getting her bearings. Somehow she knew that Carol was right.
For some reason, alone on a Tuesday night, Samantha had decided to go out to a bar she rarely visited. She wouldn’t believe it except that it was probably the closest bar to her house. And then she had helped a woman get to the hospital, apparently evangelizing the whole way. This was extra ironic because as far as she knew, she’d never shared the gospel with anyone. She’d always figured, who would want to hear it from her? Who would look at her life and think, yeah, I want some of that? So she never witnessed. She didn’t feel qualified.
And yet, at her drunkest, apparently, she’d done just that. How strange.
And then a good Samaritan had given her a ride home.
That was it.
End of story.
She started the car and drove straight to the hospital.
“Can I help you?” a woman in scrubs asked as she approached the doors.
“Not an emergency,” she said quickly. “I was here a few weeks ago.” She braced herself for more humiliation. “I don’t remember because I was black out drunk, but I helped a woman with a head injury walk here. She was drunk too.”
“Oh yeah!” the woman said slowly. “I mean, we get a lot of alcohol-related injuries, but they don’t usually come on foot.”
“And then I guess I got a ride home from someone in a blue or black truck, and well ...” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I’m just wondering if anyone saw me and might be able to tell me whose truck that was.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, I have no idea.”
“Do you know who was on that night? Maybe I could ask them?”
The woman was obviously annoyed. “Hang on,” she said with attitude. “I’ll go ask.”
Samantha didn’t know if the woman meant that she should wait outside, but she did, and the woman took so long that Samantha started to think she’d been ghosted. But then she came back out through the glass doors.
“Sorry, I asked around, but no one remembers seeing you leave that night.”
“Okay, thank you. I do appreciate you trying.”
Scanning the parking lot for dark colored pickups, and finding only an abundance of white SUVs, Samantha returned to her car. That was it, then. She was never going to know. And she was never, ever drinking again.