Once Ronnie got her through the tricks of the clutch and gear shifting, it seemed she'd been driving for years. She had a feel for it, and by August her license was in her new brown purse and she ventured onto roads she'd never traveled. Her fear was that the car would stall on a hill in traffic and she'd hold up the parade while she tried to start it again, would flood the engine, forget the brake and roll down backwards into an ambulance.
At first she stayed on valley highways, but after a few weeks began to pick mountain roads where she could lean into the corners or nurse the old heap up the slope to a pull-off at the top and take in the panorama through her new eyeglasses. Continuity broke: when she drove, her stifled youth unfurled like ribbon pulled from a spool.
Quotation from: Postcards by E. Annie Proulx
