Lakeville Highway

alternatively titled "We'll take the long way".

You’re driving. It’s hot and mid-July and my feet are up on the dashboard which I know isn’t safe but you’re behind the wheel so nothing can go wrong. The AC is blasting, the sun beating down on my skin, warming the parts of me that are a deep cold from the air conditioning having been on for over an hour. I slowly sip my coffee, trying to make it last the whole drive as condensation drips onto my leg, ice cold.

I’m wearing that striped dress, the blue and white one with the thin straps. Even though I’m meeting your parents for the first time today and I wanted to wear something more modest, you assured me it would be fine. It’s Stockton in July, they’ll understand. 

It’s supposed to be 109 degrees today. 

You put on my favorite album and skipped immediately to track eight. And we sing in the car and your hand is on my knee, your thumb rubbing on my skin as you keep your eyes on the road and I keep my eyes on you and everything feels warm and sunkissed and calm.

And we turn a corner down the road after passing some golden grass farms and baby sheep on the hills and it’s then I know what road we are on.

You feel my body go tight and pull your hand back to the wheel and turn down the music and you ask what’s wrong and I can’t say. Because I can’t ruin the day I meet your parents with memories like this.

But it’s been seven months since I drove these roads. 

And memories like that are so persistent.

I drove them with him. I was driving, he was in the passenger seat because I didn’t trust him enough to let him be behind the wheel. I had an irrational fear that morning he was going to crash the car on purpose to kill us both. I don’t know if he would have. I don’t know if he would have even thought of it. 

But I had.

There were presents in the back seat, less than I had planned on wrapping but once everything happened I had to prioritize, and buying and wrapping gifts for a family I would likely never see again was not high up on that list.

I hadn’t eaten a meal in two days. But that morning he forced me to eat a bagel with cream cheese. I finished eating it on the walk to the car and before we even unlocked the car doors I said I wanted another one and he ran back home to make another. He never did things like that before. He only did it then because he knew he had to.

His mom even told him in front of me. You do anything she wants now, got it?

I ate the second bagel while we drove. While I drove. And I couldn’t listen to music because it all made me cry so I put on a podcast about postcards. Because only a podcast about postcards wouldn’t make me cry. And it was cold. My heater in my car wasn’t working right and he had offered to help fix it but tried and just made things worse. I shivered the whole drive and I didn’t want him to touch me. I don’t think I ever wanted to be touched less in my life. And I only had on makeup to cover the bags under my eyes and my clothes were so baggy that no one could see my body. I don’t think I even did my hair, frizzy dried-out curls limp at my shoulders.  

It was the longest drive of my life. 

And when we drove home it was even longer. 

Because in the dark of midnight on Christmas Eve he recounted the horrors of last spring. I pulled over to throw up and kept driving home. And we stood in the kitchen when we got there, our four-month-old kitten circling our feet, our Christmas tree lights unplugged. The gingerbread houses on the table falling apart at the seams. I had an irrational fear he might kill me in my sleep that night. I don’t know if he would have even thought of it.

But I had.

He left that night with only a pillow.

Is that the pillow you woke up on this morning? No, I shake the thought away. He never gave that one back, we’re safe. It’s just the mattress that needs to be burned now, once I can afford a new one.

You squeeze my hand, and I lean the seat all the way back, returning to my body bit by bit. The warmness of the sun on my knees, the cool air blowing at my defined curls, the bit of condensation from my coffee still wet on the hem of my dress. The sound of august on the speakers.  

How many more times will I have to drive this road? Alone? With our children? Will I have to drive this very road to our own Christmas one day? With presents in the back seat just like before?

“We can take the long way next time,” You say without knowing. 

I imagine the roads of the long way, twisting through counties I’ve never passed through, unlived memories, and unseen trees. Give me hours and hours of it. 

We’ll take the long way. 

And the next time I drive Lakeville Highway I’ll be healed. And it will be cold. And there will be presents in the backseat. A warm cup of coffee in my hands as you drive, the heater on, on our way to spend Christmas with your parents. And Christmas Eve of the past won’t be the most haunted day of the year anymore.