I first saw her car, a battered old and rusted two-door Hyundai sedan that had seen better days. She came by the Little Free Library in front of the farmhouse a few days after I had announced on the blog that I was leaving cans of beans and soup along with the books.

I make it a point not to look out the window to see who is stopping there, but I was drawn to the growling noise of the car’s muffler. I never really know who comes for food or books, but I remembered the car, or it’s sound, anyway.

Today, I heard the car again and was preoccupied with writing. Ten minutes or so later, the mail truck pulled up to put our mail in the mailbox. I started to get the mail and was surprised to see the Hyundai still out there; the engine turned off. A middle-aged woman seemed to be struggling to close the library door.

I called over to her and asked if she needed help, and she answered in Spanish and looked embarrassed, so I walked over – I wasn’t wearing my mask- and stopped five or six feet away. She was having trouble with the hook; the screw was loose. I came over and tightened it. I told her not to worry about it. She said she had taken one can of soup and one can of beans, and asked, in halting but intelligible English, if that was all right.

Sure, I said, take as many you want. Thank you, sir, she said.

I guessed she was a farmworker from Mexico or Guatemala; I know there are some Mexicans and South Americans who work on the farms in the area.  Most are here on visas; some might be undocumented.

We never see these workers in town, they often live in trailers on the farms and are taken to food shop once a week.

On impulse, I asked if she was all right, and she answered me in broken English. She worked on a farm about 20 miles away, she lived with another woman who was sick, and they had been laid off shortly after the onset of the coronavirus into New York State.

Her farmer was not able to get his milk to market and was dumping it on the farm.

He couldn’t afford to pay her or her roommate, but he said she could stay in the trailer for a few weeks, but then had to leave unless the shut down was lifted, and perhaps even then.

She had no idea where she would go. Her friend and roommate had a leg infection from a wound after cutting herself on the edge of a wheelbarrow.

I asked if she had been to a doctor, and she said no, they couldn’t go to a doctor.

I didn’t pursue it, wondering how I could help.

I didn’t ask if she was undocumented, and she didn’t tell me.

She said they had no money for a doctor now anyway. And they had run out of food. She heard about the library beans from the farmer’s wife.

I asked what she would do, and she said she would never go home – it was horrible there, there was no work and terrible violence from gangs.

As we talked, a New York State Trooper pulled up and rolled his window down. I have never had reason to be afraid of the police, but a chill went up and down my spine. His presence scared me.

“Is everything all right here?”  he asked, looking over the car, and glancing at the expired inspection sticker. I felt my heart jump and the woman – she said her name was Isla – looked terrified, she was afraid to speak. She just nodded.

“Officer,” I said, “this is a friend of mine; everything is okay, we’re just talking; she’s checking out my books in the library.”

The Trooper looked at Isla, and the cans, then the car, then at me.

Our eyes met, and I could see he understood what was happening, and who she was, and that her stickers had expired. I looked him in the eyes and pleaded silently for him to leave.

I was a police reporter for a long time, and I know the police are controversial in America right now, but I liked most of the ones I met and knew and admired them. Most of them just wanted to help people.

I know it’s not comparable, but standing out on the road, at the mercy of this young man with a gun, my mind raced back to the stories my grandmother used to tell of her horrific encounters with the police in the old country, and my aunts and uncles told about their encounters with police in Germany.

Jewish immigrant families had so many stories to tell about the police, just as African-Americans do today.

Every Saturday, my grandmother would walk with me into downtown Providence and take me to a movie, her pocketbook stuffed with penny candy from her store.

Usually, we saw Jerry Lewis movies. The only time I ever saw her laugh out loud was at a Jerry Lewis movie. And she only spoke Yiddish, she never understood a word he said.

We saw them over and over, and she laughed until she cried every time. Every time a police car passed, she would throw herself in front of me to try to block me from the officers’ view. “Shah!” she would whisper: “be still.”

None of us could convince her that the police didn’t round up the Jews in America, we were safe here.

She said sooner or later, they would come for us. They always did.

But this is America, I reminded myself, batting away those stories.

There is nothing to fear here for me.  The Trooper is only trying to help. I hope he just goes away.

The officer looked back at me – he had a buzz cut and looked military – and his blue eyes said a lot.

Then he nodded, saluted both of us by putting two fingers to his forehead, wished us a good day, and drove off. I realized I wasn’t breathing much, and I didn’t even know this woman standing in front of my house with her tattered old car.

I said a silent thank you to him.

Isla looked as if she would faint. “If I got arrested,” she said in her broken English, “my roommate would die in that trailer. She would never go out to ask for help.”

I told Isla to wait and went back into the house. I picked up $200 in Price Chopper Gift Cards that I had purchased for the refugee families and gave them to her. She was disbelieving, grateful, surprised.

One less thing for her to fear, I thought.

Price Chopper is expensive, she said, she always went to Wal-Mart, but this was a wonderful gift, how could she ever thank me?

Come back at this time next week, I said. I will tape an envelope to the back of the library and tape the envelope to the back of a tree; I don’t think I’ll say which one.

I so hate being afraid in this country. It hurts to hear African-Americans talk about their numerous encounters with the police, and their fear of them. It hurt me to see my grandmother’s fear as well.

At least you can eat until you can get paid again, I said to Isla. I was going to warn her about the muffler, but I didn’t. I needed to respect the boundaries of my life.

She asked if she could give me a hug, but I remembered Maria and the Governor’s strong warnings to keep distant. Some other time, I said.

“I’m sorry for what has happened to our country,” I said. “It’s not who we are.”

Isla smiled and thanked me.

At this point, I don’t think she cared what our country was once like. She thanked me again and turned on her car engine, and rumbled off.

I took Zinnia off for a walk to shake off those awful stories in my head that her visit had jarred loose.

Next time, I’ll tell her she needs to get that muffler fixed, or she will get pulled over. Perhaps I can help with that.