Chapter 2: Arizona Roads and Broken Promises

Two years ago, I followed a trucking convoy to Arizona to sell salt, and met Jason on the road.

The Arizona air shimmered with heat, the smell of diesel and dry grass thick in my nose. The endless highway stretched ahead, dust rising from the eighteen-wheelers. The world felt stripped to basics—survival, hunger, hope.

The refugees had no home or land. He blended in with the other drifters, limping along the highway until his ankle gave out and he tumbled into a ditch.

No one cared.

He lay in the ditch, covered in knife wounds, his clothes in tatters.

He grabbed my sleeve, his eyes full of desperate hope. “Ma’am, help me…”

His voice was rough, cracked from thirst and pain. It startled me how young he sounded up close—so different from the older men in our group.

After washing his face, I was surprised.

Jason turned out to be a handsome young man.

Even after traveling the country with Dad, I had never seen anyone so handsome.

I was stunned for a moment, my cheeks flushing.

Jason told me he was from D.C., a grad student whose family was implicated in a political scandal. His entire family’s assets were seized, and he became a refugee.

“Please, ma’am, help me. I’ll pay you back someday.”

For him, I stayed in Flagstaff, rented a two-bedroom house, and cared for him attentively.

The neighbors said he was cold and aloof, and might not be grateful.

I just smiled.

That day, I went shopping and brought him a folding fan.

He slowly opened it, his gaze flickering, and asked gently, “You treat me so well. I don’t know how to repay you.”

I joked, “Then why don’t you marry me?”

He replied, “Alright.”

I laughed, thinking he was kidding, but he didn’t laugh back. There was a strange earnestness in his eyes. It made me shiver a little, and a weird kind of hope bloomed in my chest.

Before Thanksgiving, he even set up a little stand at the farmers’ market, writing fancy signs and names for a few bucks. Then he made me a copper hairpin, the design drawn by his own hand.

He handed it to me, his fingers brushing mine—just for a second, his tough guy act slipped. He said he had nothing valuable for an engagement gift, so he could only give me this hairpin, to gather up my hair.

I felt I had found a treasure.

I wrote to Dad, telling him I had found my ideal husband and would no longer travel with the convoy.

From then on, I had a home and a husband.

I thought the worst was over and the best was yet to come. I believed I’d found my place in the world—simple, maybe, but real.