I go in the dark and dirt like my dad tells me to at the truck stop outside of Leesburg. The fluorescent lights of the gas station outline my silhouette as faint as a shadow requires to appear. The taste of metal enters my mouth, a real life spidey-sense, as a rundown red pick-up truck rolls by. Our two cars are the only ones along the stretch of country road adjacent to I-95. The stranger's window churns open and before malevolence can be cast, I zip up and run back into our Nissan Quest. Ma and bhai are asleep in the backseats. I have been my dad's atlas. As such, I tell him to go. Jaldee, jaldee. In times of danger, Hinglish surfaces. My dad seems unfazed as if this is his duty. As if this is another knot on the long rope of surviving. Road trip quiet is similar to cafe quiet. Noises fade into movement. The rev of the engine becomes our background music. Our lo-fi hip-hop. The whoosh of a speeding car passing by—a refreshing reminder we are safe in motion. Momentary glances out into the darkness, where unnamed forests thrive. Road trip people are special people. They find happiness in vacancy signs. Lit up neon letters, backlit billboards, golden arches, waffle house announcements jutting into the star-flecked sky. Lights, all sorts, draw the attention. We stop for a midnight coffee. I ask him what it tastes like and, still silent since Leesburg, Dad hands me the cup. A twelve-year-old can only love coffee so much, but I go back for a second sip and a third. It's something new. And then Dad says the only words he'll say for another few hours, "that's enough." And it was enough. Enough for me to get my own cup the next time we stopped. Two creams, two sugars, please. And we both sipped our coffee in the cosmic hours before dawn as rubber painted pavement, trees on either side, and the hum of the open road sang the silence.