The sun shone brightly, saying good morning as I steered the car along the curving highway. The speed was only 90: impossible to remember and even harder to obey. David dozed beside me, his seat reclined, pillow tucked under arm and head. My music was soft and there were trees and ponds and lakes and rocks. We had just passed Kenora a little while ago and were heading on to Thunderbay. I'm watching the guy in front of me and then there's this thing on my left, this cop SUV and it startles me so I swerve a little to the right and there's this noise, this VVVVVVVVVVVVRRRRRRRRRRRR as I swipe the indents in the pavement meant to wake you up. David jerks up but I'm watching the cop ahead of me who slows, pulls off the road, lets me pass.
As soon as I've passed him he flicks his lights on and then he's behind me and we're both driving over 90. I kind of panic; ask David if I should pull over.
"Yes," he says and so I do. I'm rolling down the window, cranking it quickly but the cop is there before it's all the way down. He asks where we're from. He asks where we're going. He asks for my license and if we went through Kenora. I told him no, we hadn't, and he asks for proof. Now I ask you, HOW do you prove you have NOT been somewhere. I hadn't any idea what to offer. We had stopped the night before, around two a.m., to try to sleep. That had been entirely unsuccessful; I find I sleep much better in a moving car than a parked one. It had been cold and uncomfortable and so, at 7:30 in the morning we had pulled out.
I'm locating my license as the cop asks me to step out of the vehicle. He's examining the front with his hand rubbing his chin and I realize I'm not wearing shoes. I prefer to drive barefoot but I think someone once told me that it's illegal and so I'm scrambling to pull my flats onto the right feet and then he's showing me the scuff marks on the front of the car. David's out now too and neither of us could tell him exactly what they were from. Then he wants to know where the front license plate was. In Ontario it's still law to have a plate on the front and the back whereas is Saskatchewan you only need the back plate. Last, he looks at the hood and in the dust are two, clear handprints. Now he's looking kind of stern as he asks,"And where did these handprints come from?" I think David and I were both at a loss for words. Our mouths hung open and our brains searched for some plausible explanation. Anything. The police officer then goes on to explain that there had been a hit and run in Kenora just twenty minutes before. That a girl, matching my description exactly, had hit someone on a bike who was now in critical condition in the hospital. He stresses that it was the same type of car, that everything lines up, and then he walks back and hops into his SUV.
I sat in the driver's seat. David slides into the passenger seat and we sat there dumbfounded, trying to work out how we could prove we were innocent. I can assure you, if I had just hit someone on a bike I'd be a LOT more shaken up(and my mother can attest to that). As we're thinking and waiting and staring at the road ahead of us that we now might not be travelling down that day, it comes to me. I knew where the handprints were from. I reminded David that before we had left the city on Friday, we had laid hands on and prayed over the car. Prayed for a safe drive, for no car trouble, for good spirits. Now a)do we tell the police officer this? And b)if we do, will he believe us.
He comes back, hands me my license, and says that everything matches, except for David in the vehicle. Then he let us go. We shut our windows, fastened our seatbelts and waited until he was around the corner behind us. Then I pulled onto the road and drove.
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