That summer we drove back to Winnipeg, to visit the family and friends we’d left behind.

“Four days in the car!” said Amy, my sister, excited by the prospect. She was only eight years old. 

“We’ll stop in Duluth to visit your cousins at their cottage,” my Mom explained, showing us the map. Our route threaded surprisingly straight from Montreal across the backside of Northern Ontario, dipped into the States and then back up to the edge of the Canadian prairies.

There’s a certain rhythm to all road trips and this one was no exception. We traveled only during the day. In the backseat of our aging white Rambler, I read. Becca listened to her red transistor radio, pressed up against her ear, tuned in to whatever local station we were passing. Amy sat on the hump in the middle, a barrier against the pinching and elbowing that happened if her older sisters sat together.

There was no air-conditioning in our car. We rolled the windows all the way down so that the breeze would cool us. When that failed we stopped at a gas station for an icy cold bottle of Coke, pulled from a sweating fridge. The motel where we stopped had a pool, and in our one burst of energy we kids would run from the car, pull on our bathings suits and jump into the water. 

Our second day was the longest: from North Bay, through Sudbury, to Sault Ste Marie. On either side of the highway marched a barrier of spruce and pine, trees chosen not for their beauty but for their ability to withstand wind in the fall and road salt in the winter.

“The Big Nickel!” said Becca, pointing to a billboard on the side of the road.  

I was fifteen. All enthusiasm was met with a shrug. But Becca, two years younger, persisted. “There’s a restaurant. We could get a snack.”

“Is the nickel as big as our house?” asked Amy. 

“Bigger!” said Becca. 

But my Dad had not slept well at the Comfort Inn North Bay. The air conditioner had been too loud and too cold. And no, he did not want to drive into Sudbury to see some tourist trap. We had to keep going if we wanted to do something other than sit in the car all day long. He only got three weeks of vacation a year and he didn’t want to spend the whole time driving across the bloody country and back.   

He was already tired but my mother would not drive. “I’m too nervous on the highway,” she said.

Around noon we pulled into a small strip of stores: on the right a desolate Kwik Mart and on the left our destination, a Dairy Queen. We ordered our burgers and shakes from a gum-popping blonde with chipped nail polish and a wisp of a French accent. Then we followed my Mom over to the lone picnic table next to the parking lot. 

We nodded our heads as we tasted the food. This Dairy Queen was better than yesterday’s. The fries were crispy and the milkshakes were cold and thick; chocolate-y and not watered down with ice. 

My Mom unfolded the map on the picnic table. Our path along the Trans-Canada highway was highlighted in yellow marker, but even thus emboldened it looked small and defenseless against the huge expanse of green that stretched above it. She pointed to our current location: Blind River, Ontario. A tiny dot still vexingly far away from where the yellow marker ended.

It was not my idea to make this trip. “I can stay here,” I told my mother when she proposed it. I was angry when we moved to Montreal but now, only one summer later, I wanted to stay at home with my friends.

“Absolutely not,” said my mother.

“We can all stay here, as far as I’m concerned,” my Dad muttered from behind me. I jumped. He’d arrived home, out of nowhere, the strain of his workday stamped on his face. 

“This is a family vacation,” my mother said. “No one is staying behind.” 

Now, seeing the map renewed my sense of injury. I pulled hard through the straw on the dregs of my milkshake. 

Becca had brought her radio and was fiddling with the dial. The music was laced with static. “Probably won’t get anything good till we’re in the Sault,” I told her. 

“Just turn it off,” said my Dad. He threw the garbage from our lunch into a nearby trash can and walked back to the car. 

In the backseat, the heat of the sun was full upon us. Amy kicked my shoulder as I bent down to retrieve my book. 

“Move over, Amy,” I grumbled. Amy slid over towards Becca.

“Not here. You’re squishing me!” said Becca, barricading her turf with her elbow, the radio to her ear.

“You’re the one squishing me!” said Amy.

Suddenly my Dad turned around. “I told you to turn the radio OFF.”  He thrust his arm over the seat towards the opposite corner where Becca sat. “Give me that thing.” 

She pulled away from him and he took a swipe at the radio. “Give it to me. I told you turn it off and you didn’t.” 

Becca clutched the radio to her chest. “I just want to listen to music. I’m tired of being in this car.”

“Oh you’re tired of being in this car,” he mimicked. He lunged at the radio again. “I said GIVE. IT. TO. ME.”

“Michael, you don’t have to yell,” said my mother. “Becca, give your father the radio.” 

Becca didn’t move. Then my Dad was out of the car, yanking open the back door next to her. He pulled the radio out of her hands and threw it hard. It winged across the parking lot and into the grass near the picnic table. We all watched as it bounced and then lay still.

Becca uttered a cry of dismay and levered out of the car. My Dad got back into the driver’s seat and pushed the stalk deliberately into reverse. Becca had the radio in her hand now. She looked up as our car pulled out of the parking lot and on to the highway at full speed. 

I twisted around to look out the rear window. “Dad, stop!”   

“Michael, what are you doing?” my mother said in a low voice.  

“Go back,” I yelled. 

“Go back, go back,” cried Amy. 

“Michael,” my mother said, louder this time. We had gone around a curve and the strip mall was no longer visible behind us.

“You can’t leave her!” I wanted to grab his arm but I was afraid to touch him, I could see his eyes in the rear view mirror. 

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