Marcus pulled up to the beige apartment complex at 6:15, same as every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday for the past two years. The morning was already warm, even for October in Phoenix. The steering wheel felt sticky under his hands.
Linh was waiting on the bench near the entrance, her purse on her lap, hands folded over it. She was wearing the blue dress with small flowers. She had maybe five dresses total, and Marcus knew them all by now.
"Good morning, Mrs. Nguyen," he said, getting out to help her into the back seat.
"Good morning, Marcus." Her voice was thinner today. "You don't need to get out every time."
"I don't mind."
He did mind, actually. His back had been acting up. But he got out anyway, held the door, made sure she was settled before closing it gently. Through the window, her face looked gray.
The drive to the dialysis center took eighteen minutes if they hit the lights right. Twenty-three if they didn't. Today they didn't. At the red light on McDowell, Linh said, "Marcus, I need to tell you something."
He glanced in the rearview mirror. She was looking out the window at a homeless man pushing a shopping cart full of aluminum cans.
"What's that, Mrs. Nguyen?"
"I put you in my will."
The light turned green. Marcus drove through it, not sure he'd heard right.
"You don't have any family?" he asked finally.
"I have a nephew in California. Tommy. He sells houses." She paused. "He doesn't visit."
Marcus didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything. They drove the rest of the way in silence, the air conditioning struggling against the heat.
At the dialysis center, he helped her out, walked her to the door.
"Four hours?" he asked, though he knew the answer.
"Four hours."
"I'll be here."
She touched his arm, just barely. "I know."
Marcus drove around for a while, picked up a few riders. A businessman going to the airport who spent the whole ride on his phone. A young woman heading to her job at Target who smelled like weed and coconut body spray. An elderly man who wanted to go to three different pharmacies looking for a specific brand of antacid.
His phone buzzed while he was waiting at the third pharmacy. The dialysis center.
"Mr. Thompson? This is Cheryl at Desert Valley Dialysis. Mrs. Nguyen had an episode. The ambulance is taking her to Banner Good Samaritan."
Marcus left the elderly man at the CVS.
The hospital smelled like all hospitals smell. Disinfectant and fear and old coffee. They wouldn't tell him anything at first. He wasn't family. He sat in the waiting room for two hours, watching CNN on mute, before a nurse finally took pity on him.
"She had a minor stroke," the nurse said. She was young, Filipino maybe, with tired eyes. "She's stable now. Asking for you."
Linh looked smaller in the hospital bed, tubes running into her arms. Her eyes were open, alert.
"I'm okay," she said before he could ask. Her speech was slightly slurred but clear enough. "Don't look so worried."
"You scared me."
"I scared myself." She tried to smile. The left side of her face didn't quite cooperate. "I called Tommy. He's flying in tonight."
"That's good."
"Is it?"
Marcus sat in the chair beside her bed. They didn't talk much. He helped her sip water through a straw. A doctor came in, explained about the stroke, the recovery time, the therapy she'd need. Marcus took notes on his phone, though he wasn't sure why.
Tommy arrived the next morning. Marcus was there, had been there all night sleeping in the chair. Tommy was shorter than Marcus expected, wearing an expensive-looking polo shirt and jeans that looked like they'd been ironed.
"You're the Uber driver," Tommy said. Not a question.
"Marcus."
"Right. Thanks for staying with her. I can take it from here."
Linh was awake, watching them.
"I don't mind staying," Marcus said.
"No, really. Family should be here for this." Tommy's smile was the kind Marcus had seen on billboards. All teeth, no warmth.
Marcus looked at Linh. She gave a tiny nod. He left.
Three days later, Tommy called him. Marcus was in his apartment, drinking his third beer of the afternoon, watching an old Clint Eastwood movie.
"We need to talk," Tommy said. "About my aunt's will."
"What about it?"
"Can you meet me at her apartment? I'll be there in an hour."
Marcus got there first. He had a key—Linh had given it to him six months ago in case of emergencies. The apartment smelled like her herb garden on the balcony was dying in the heat. He watered the plants while he waited.
Tommy arrived in a white Tesla. He came in without knocking, found Marcus on the balcony with the watering can.
"She says she's leaving you money," Tommy said without preamble. "Fifty thousand dollars."
Marcus set down the watering can. "I didn't ask for it."
"I'm sure you didn't. But you can see how it looks. An old woman, confused, maybe not thinking clearly. A driver who's been, what's the word, grooming her?"
"I drive her to dialysis. We talk sometimes. That's all."
"For two years."
"Yes."
Tommy walked around the small apartment, looking at things. The photos on the bookshelf—old black and white pictures of people in Vietnam, a color photo of Linh and her late husband at the Grand Canyon. The ceramic elephant on the coffee table. The stack of Vietnamese newspapers by the couch.
"She doesn't even know you," Tommy said.
"She knows me better than she knows you."
Tommy's face got red. "I'm her family."
"When's the last time you visited? Before this week."
"I have a business. A life."
"So does she."
Tommy picked up the ceramic elephant, turned it over in his hands. "How much do you make driving Uber?"
"Enough."
"No, really. How much? Thirty thousand a year? Forty?"
"About that."
"So fifty thousand is a lot of money to you."
Marcus didn't answer. It was a lot of money. More than he'd ever had at once. He could pay off his credit cards, maybe get a better apartment, fix his car properly instead of with duct tape and hope.
"I'll contest it," Tommy said. "The will. I'll say she wasn't competent. That you took advantage."
"She's completely competent."
"She just had a stroke."
"A minor stroke. Her mind's fine."
Tommy set the elephant down too hard. Its trunk chipped off, fell onto the coffee table.
"Shit," Tommy said. Then, "Look, what if I pay you to walk away? Ten thousand. Cash. You sign something saying you won't accept the inheritance."
Marcus looked at the broken elephant. "No."
"Fifteen."
"It's not about the money."
"Everything's about money."
"Not this."
Tommy left angry, the Tesla silent as it pulled away. Marcus glued the elephant's trunk back on. It looked almost normal if you didn't look too close.
Linh came home a week later. Medicare covered a visiting nurse three times a week and physical therapy twice a week, but Marcus drove her to her appointments anyway. Her speech was better. Her left hand still didn't work quite right.
"Tommy went back to California," she said on their first Tuesday drive after the hospital.
"I know."
"He wants me to change my will."
"I know that too."
She looked out the window. They were passing the spot where she'd watched the man with the shopping cart that morning before the stroke. There was a different man there now, or maybe the same one with different cans.
"I'm not going to change it," she said.
"You don't have to do anything for me, Mrs. Nguyen."
"I know." She was quiet for a moment. "My husband and I, we couldn't have children. We tried for many years. I thought Tommy might... but he's his father's son. His father was always about money too."
At the dialysis center, Marcus helped her out of the car. She was steadier now but still held his arm.
"Will you wait?" she asked.
"Four hours?"
"Four hours."
"I'll be here."
She squeezed his arm before letting go.
Marcus drove his usual circuits. The businessman going to the airport. The college kids heading to Mill Avenue. The drunk woman who needed to get home from the casino at 2 AM. He'd been doing this for three years now, ever since the warehouse closed. The city spread out around him in all directions, a grid of identical streets and strip malls and apartment complexes.
Sometimes he thought about his ex-wife, remarried now, living in Tucson with her new husband who sold insurance. Sometimes he thought about the fifty thousand dollars. Mostly he tried not to think at all, just drove, followed the app's directions, collected his fares.
But every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, he picked up Linh at 6:15. She always wore one of her five dresses. They talked about small things—the weather, her herbs, his ex-wife sometimes, her escape from Saigon in 1975 sometimes. She made spring rolls on Tuesdays and always sent him home with a container full.
Three months after the stroke, on a Thursday, Linh said, "I'm changing the will after all."
Marcus's chest tightened. "Okay."
"I'm leaving you the apartment too."
"Mrs. Nguyen—"
"It's paid for. The fees are low. You could sell it or live in it." She paused. "I'd like to think of you living in it. Taking care of the herbs."
"That's too much."
"It's not enough." She was looking straight ahead. "You know what's funny? Tommy called me every week after he went back to California. For about a month. Then the calls stopped. I think he realized it wasn't working."
"Maybe he'll come around."
"Maybe." She didn't sound like she believed it. "But you'll still be here."
"Yes."
"Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday."
"As long as you need me."
She laughed, a small sound. "What if I need you longer than that?"
Marcus didn't answer. They were at the dialysis center. He helped her out, walked her to the door. Four hours. He'd be back in four hours. And on Saturday. And next Tuesday. For as long as it took.
He thought about Tommy in his Tesla, driving back to California, to his real estate business and his life that didn't have room for an old woman who needed rides to dialysis. He thought about Linh's husband, dead five years now, who'd worked at a dry cleaner for thirty years to pay for this apartment. He thought about loneliness, how it stretched out across the city like the heat, settling into every corner.
His phone buzzed. Another ride request. He accepted it, drove toward the pickup location. The city moved past his windows, apartment complexes and palm trees and people waiting at bus stops in the heat.
Six months later, Linh died in her sleep on a Monday night. Heart failure, the doctor said. Quick and peaceful. Marcus found out Tuesday morning when he arrived at 6:15 and the apartment manager met him at the entrance.
Tommy flew in for the funeral. There weren't many people there. Some neighbors, a few people from the dialysis center, Marcus. Tommy gave a short speech about family and heritage and the American dream. He mentioned that Linh had come here with nothing and built a life. He didn't mention the will.
Afterward, in the parking lot, Tommy approached Marcus.
"The lawyer will contact you," he said. His voice was neutral, businesslike. "About the apartment and the money."
"Okay."
"I thought about contesting it."
"I know."
"But I didn't." Tommy looked across the parking lot at his rental car—not a Tesla this time, just a regular Nissan. "She was right. You were there. I wasn't."
He started to walk away, then turned back.
"Take care of the herbs," he said. "She loved those damn herbs."
Marcus moved into the apartment two months later. It was smaller than his old place but nicer. Quieter. The herbs on the balcony were thriving—basil and cilantro and mint, and something Vietnamese he didn't know the name of but which smelled like Linh's spring rolls.
He still drove Uber. Still picked up the businessmen and the college kids and the drunk casino patrons. But now when he came home, it was to a place that felt like something more than just walls and a roof. The ceramic elephant sat on the coffee table, its glued trunk barely visible. The photos watched from the bookshelf. On Tuesdays, he tried to make spring rolls, following the recipe Linh had written out for him in her careful handwriting. They never tasted quite right, but he kept trying.
Sometimes, pulling up to the dialysis center out of habit before remembering, he thought he saw her waiting on the bench. Small woman, blue dress with flowers, purse on her lap. But it was always someone else, another old woman needing a ride, another person alone in the city.
He picked them up anyway. Drove them where they needed to go. Listened to their stories or their silence. Helped them out at their destination. Promised to be there when they were done.
It wasn't much, but it was something. In a city full of strangers, it was something.
The money from Linh's will sat in his bank account, mostly untouched. He'd paid off his credit cards, fixed his car properly, bought a new mattress for the apartment. The rest he was saving, though he wasn't sure for what. Maybe nothing. Maybe just the security of knowing it was there, like knowing someone had thought he was worth remembering.
On Tuesday mornings, he still woke up at 5:30, got ready to leave by 6:00. Old habits. He'd sit on the balcony with his coffee, watching the city wake up, the heat already building even in the early morning. The herbs needed watering. They always needed watering in Phoenix. He'd tend to them carefully, the way Linh had showed him, talking to them sometimes in the quiet morning, telling them about his rides, about the people he'd met, about the spring rolls that still didn't taste quite right.
Then he'd go to work, driving strangers through the city, following the endless grid of streets, the app directing him to the next pickup, the next destination, the next brief connection between people who needed to get somewhere and someone willing to take them there.