What women truckers can tell us about living and working alone

This story is adapted from the latest episode of Rough Translation. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or NPR One.

Jess Graham had a plan. And she was ready to put it in motion.

So she got behind the wheel of her new 18-wheeler and drove to the house she once shared with her ex-partner. It was 2010. In her wallet she had the tens and twenties in cash she'd squirreled away for years and a freshly issued commercial trucking license.

And in the cab of her truck, there was a vacant bunk reserved for someone special: her ten-year-old daughter Halima.

"I came in, packed her up, went to the school, told her that she is no longer enrolled, and we hit the road," Graham says.

For the better part of a year, Graham and Halima lived in the truck.

Graham had never considered trucking as a profession before, but she knew she had to put miles between herself and her daughter's father, who Graham says was verbally and financially abusive