The Last Mile Home
by Mark LaFlamme
Without question, McAbe’s favorite part of the trip were the last miles home. Turning from the highway onto Route 6, it would be near midnight. Stars twinkled in the high, summer sky. Birds chirped in long meadows. The car would still smell like the salt air of Popham, though Maine would be hours behind them. Julia asleep in the passenger seat, cheek pressed against folded hands.
Year after year, it was the same. McAbe knew the long stretch of Route 6 like he knew the path to his garden at home. The way the road bent around Dube’s farm, like a long tube of elbow macaroni. It was wise to slow there and hug the center of the road.
The big dip just before the babbling stream and then a sharp hill to treeless farmland. A long, flat stretch and then one more dramatic curve to the right that warranted caution.
McAbe would slow and then sped up accordingly. He wound around curves and eased over slopes with precision, recalling all the splendor of the trip and of his life.
The last miles home afforded their own, secret magic.
The pavement would turn to gravel. The grit of pebbles beneath the tires would mark the last moments of the journey. And then, invisible amid the thickness of woods, the dirt driveway slashed through the trees like a secret passage. Home. Sweet, sweet home. Twist the key, quiet the engine and wait.
Year after year, it was the same. Julia woke dazed and disoriented. She glanced out at their home and then over at her husband’s tired, smirking face. She smiled because the vacation had been a good one and she was glad to be back.
"Oh, Jack. You’re amazing. Year after year, you carry me home."
And Jack would reach out and stroke her cheek and the vacation was officially over.
Childless, married for a dozen years and almost foolishly in love were the McAbe’s. Each summer for nine years, they spent long weekends at Popham Beach and each of those trips was flawless. Each ended with Julia dazed, disoriented and sublimely happy in the driveway of their home.
Year after year. But then one summer, the headaches became severe. McAbe spent days in bed, twisting in agony when the pills weren’t enough to take him down. The blinds were kept closed. The house was kept almost full dark, for any lamp might send stray photons shooting into his eyeballs, causing him to shriek.
The migraines were bad this summer. He was down to two or three a year, but it was two or three too many. This time, the headache came with its blinding aura two days before the planned trip to Popham. Horrible fate. Days in a bed of agony when he should be strolling the night beach at Popham hand-in-hand with his bride.
Long after the pain had subsided and McAbe was on his feet again, he moped and brooded. Wretched migraines. His dad had them, his granddad, too. Both men had died of aneurysms before they were 60.
All medical tests showed no signs of flaws in McAbe’s brains, but still he brooded. A migraine had cost him the yearly trip and he brooded. Back to the hardware store; back to sweaty work weeks of nails and hammers, of toil and stress. No vacation at all, beyond the drug induced coma and pain like a hot spike in his head.
"We’ll get there next summer," Julia assured him. "We’ll stay twice as long."
Julia McAbe was right. The following summer, they took extra time for the trip. A full week at Popham and a full week of leisure and love. They ate at seaside restaurants and hurled French fries to the seagulls. They toured the old fort and carved their initials into a granite block. They collected driftwood on the beach at sundown and twice made love in the sand.
The true measure of a well spent vacation is when departing means sadness but not gloom. They checked out of the ocean front inn at noon, took one last walk along the beach. Tired but rested. Content but eager for home.
Two hours out of Maine, Julia fell into her customary, interstate sleep. Night had fallen and traffic thinned on the highway. McAbe clicked off the radio and enjoyed the shallow, cotton sounds of his wife’s breathing. The car smelled of sea salt.
It was nearing 10 p.m. when McAbe departed from the highway, sliced down the off ramp and turned onto Route 6, the best part of the trip. Sounds of the turnpike fell behind them and disappeared. Stars twinkled above and birds chirped all around. The hum of the engine and the easy sound of Julia’s breathing soothed and delighted him as he began the last miles home.
The lights began flashing all at once. Blue hot fire seemed to burn in the air an inch before his eyes. The blazing spots pulsed and flickered and obscured three quarters of his vision. Those hateful, dreadful lights that marked the beginning of a hellish migraine.
The familiar dread seized him. The sublime glow of bliss was replaced by a morbid sense of impending agony. Suddenly morose, McAbe decided dismally to pull the car to the side of the road; to wake Julia with the horrendous news.
A wet, squishy noise startled him. It seemed very loud inside his head and a jolt of red further obscured his vision. There was a moment of pain – only a flicker, really – as the bulging blood vessel burst behind the left temporal lobe, and flooded his brain with blood.
The wet sound, the wash of red, and the pin prick of pain were the last coherent thoughts to hold residence in Jack McAbe’s now dying brain. But the fantastic instrument continued to function in its death throes. Neurons called up crucial memories and fired. Messages were carried across drowning synapses. Though the sentient Jack McAbe was gone from the world, the vestiges of his memories lingered. And the discorporate part of him that so loved his bride carried forth.
Eyes rolled back in their sockets, head slumped onto his chest, McAbe continued to drive. One hand draped over the steering wheel. The right foot stabbed at the gas pedal and lunged toward the brake accordingly. Precious memories of Route 6 were slow to die and so guided his hands and feet.
Where the road bent around Dube’s farm, McAbe’s foot eased off the gas. He slowed considerably and steered toward the center of the road, as was wise to do.
Where the road dipped toward the babbling stream, he accelerated quickly to ascend on the other side. A long, flat stretch of road and then a dramatic curve. Snoring now deep in his throat (as the respiratory system lost communication with the brain) the hand of Jack McAbe pulled the wheel gently to the right. The car responded precisely and the curve was negotiated.
Every bend, curve, dip and rise was maneuvered without flaw. Tires never slipped from the pavement. The car never lurched forward or slowed too suddenly. McAbe conquered Route 6 as he did year after year, though his eyes no longer aided him and reason was the first to die.
A slight depression of the gas and the tires ground into gravel, kicking up dust and marking the last of the journey.
There. Nearly unseen in the thickness of trees, the secret passageway that was the driveway. The hand of Jack McAbe gripped the steering wheel and pulled it to the right. The car angled from the gravel of Route 6 and rolled onto the smooth dirt of home. Another 10 yards and the car rolled to a stop before the small, dark house.
Slumped forward, the thick roaring in his chest louder now, the hand of McAbe reached forward and twisted the key in the ignition.
The engine quieted at once. The sounds of the night fell in. And Julia stirred in the passenger seat, rubbing her eyes and gazing around her, disoriented.
"Oh, Jack," she said, her eyes turning lovingly toward him. "You’re amazing. Year after year…"
But the protest of his lungs had ceased. Jack McAbe fell forward and the weight of his form rested on the steering wheel. The horn blared shrill into the night and married with Julia’s screams. And the last act McAbe undertook with living tissue was to reach out and stroke his wife’s cheek, and the vacation was officially over.