I gave my rideshare driver coffee every night. One night he drove past my house and said, “…”

The life insurance barely covered the funeral costs. After 42 years of marriage, I found myself alone in our small house in Medford, Oregon, trying to figure out how to stretch a teacher’s pension that suddenly felt impossibly thin.

I was 63 years old and, for the first time since I was 20, I needed to find a job. That’s how I ended up working the evening shift at Riverside Medical Center three nights a week in the billing department.

It wasn’t glamorous, but it kept me busy. It kept my mind from wandering to the empty chair at the dinner table.

The shift ended at 11:30, and I’d catch the last bus home, arriving just after midnight. Except the bus schedule changed that September.

Budget cuts, they said. The last bus now left at 11:00, a full half hour before my shift ended.

I couldn’t afford to leave early and lose those hours, so I did what I had to do. I started using a rideshare app my daughter had installed on my phone.

That’s how I met Raymond the first time his silver Toyota pulled up to the hospital staff entrance. I almost didn’t get in.

He looked to be in his late 50s with gray threading through his dark hair and deep lines around his eyes. But his rating was five stars, and it was nearly midnight in a poorly lit parking lot, so I climbed into the back seat and gave him my address on Cedar Street.

“Long shift?” he asked, his voice kind.

“Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday,” I replied, watching the familiar streets of Medford pass by the window.

“How long have you been driving?” I asked.

“About 3 years now,” he said.

“Lost my job at the Timbermill when it closed. This keeps me afloat.” Something in his voice made me look up, really look at him in the rearview mirror.

He had the same worn expression I saw in my own reflection. It was the look of someone who’d been knocked down by life but kept getting back up because what else was there to do.

“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it.

He glanced at me in the mirror, and I saw a surprise flicker across his face.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

“Most people don’t.”

“Well, thank you ma’am.”

“Carol,” I corrected.

“My name is Carol.”

“Raymond,” he replied, and I saw the ghost of a smile.

After that, something strange started happening. Three nights a week I’d request a ride, and three nights a week Raymond’s silver Toyota would be the car that accepted.

At first, I thought it was coincidence. But by the third week, I realized he was waiting, logging on around 11:20, and positioning himself near the hospital, making sure he’d be the one to pick me up.

We fell into a comfortable routine. I’d slide into the back seat exhausted from 8 hours of medical billing codes and insurance claims, and Raymond would already have my address plugged in.

We’d talk during the short 12-minute drive to my house. Nothing deep at first, just the weather, the traffic, and how our days had been.

Gradually, week by week, the conversations deepened. I learned that Raymond’s wife had left him two years ago, taking their grown daughter with her, not out of anger but out of exhaustion with their financial struggles.

He lived alone now in a small apartment near the highway, driving for various rideshare companies 6 days a week, sometimes 12 hours a day.

“My daughter just had a baby,” he told me one October night, his voice thick.

“A little girl. I’ve only seen pictures.” Without thinking, I reached forward and squeezed his shoulder.

“She’ll come around,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I believed it.

“Babies have a way of bringing families back together.” He cleared his throat.

“That’s kind of you to say.” I started tipping him extra.

Not much, just a few dollars more than my usual, but enough that he’d notice. He tried to refuse at first, but I insisted.

“You’re keeping an old woman safe,” I’d say.

“That’s worth something.” The truth was those three rides a week had become the highlight of my lonely schedule.

Raymond never pitied me, never treated me like a burden. He just listened when I needed to talk and stayed quiet when I needed silence.

In November, I started bringing him coffee. It was just a simple cup from the hospital cafeteria, still hot when his car pulled up.

The first time I handed it to him through the window, he stared at it like I’d given him gold.

“You didn’t have to do this,” he said.

“I know,” I replied.

“But the night shift makes terrible hospital coffee bearable, and I figured you could use it more than I could.” After that, the coffee became part of our routine.

I’d climb in with two cups, and we’d drive through the quiet Medford streets, sipping our drinks and talking about everything and nothing. He told me about the strange passengers he’d picked up, the late-night conversations, and the surprising cross-section of humanity he met in his car.

I told him about my husband, about learning to live alone, and about my daughter who called every Sunday but lived three states away in Colorado.

“You’re a good person, Carol,” Raymond said one night in late November, pulling up to my house.

“I want you to know that.” I felt tears prick my eyes.

“So are you, Raymond.” December arrived with unusual cold for Oregon, frost coating my front lawn in the mornings.

The hospital decorated for Christmas, with tinsel and lights in the cafeteria that made the sterile building feel almost warm. I brought Raymond hot chocolate instead of coffee, and he laughed when he saw the little candy cane I’d taped to the cup.

“My wife used to do things like this,” he said softly.

“Small kindnesses. I didn’t appreciate them enough at the time.”

“You appreciate them now,” I replied.

“That’s what matters.”

It was a Thursday night, December 14th, when everything changed. Raymond picked me up as usual, but something was different.

His hands gripped the steering wheel too tight, and he kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror. It was not in his usual friendly way, but with an intensity that made my stomach clench.

“Carol,” he said as he pulled away from the hospital.

“I need to ask you something, and I need you to answer honestly.” My throat went dry.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Your neighbor, the man who lives three houses down from you? Gray two-story with the red truck in the driveway. Do you know him well?” I blinked, completely blindsided by the question.

“Thomas Brennan? Not really. We wave when we see each other, but we’ve never had a real conversation. Why?” Raymond didn’t answer immediately.

He turned left instead of right, heading away from my street.

“Raymond, where are we going?” I asked.

“Somewhere we can talk,” his voice was tight.

“Carol, I need you to listen very carefully to what I’m about to tell you.” Fear spiked through me.

“You’re scaring me.” I said.

“I know. I’m sorry. But you need to hear this.” He pulled into the empty parking lot of a closed grocery store, put the car in park, and turned to face me fully.

In the harsh glow of the lot’s security lights, his face looked haggard.

“I picked up Thomas Brennan last week,” Raymond said.

“Saturday night, around 10:30. He was drunk, very drunk. And drunk people talk.” I waited, my heart hammering.

“He was on his phone the whole ride, arguing with someone. At first, I tried not to listen. You know, professional courtesy. But then I heard him say your address. Your exact address, Carol.” He was angry.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“These were his exact words,” Raymond said.

“The old lady at 847 Cedar is going to be a problem. She sees too much. We need to handle it before she figures it out and goes to the cops.” The world tilted.