The Passing

The snow had started when we left home. By the time we reached the foot of Visco Mountain Road, the few speckles of white had formed into a downpour of confetti that hid the mountains and obscured the view. I turned onto the road. The cabin was five miles away.
          It had to have been now that this storm hit, I thought. Couldn’t this damn thing have waited until we got up there?
          Julie sat next to me, with her knees pulled up to her chest, holding a book with both hands, lost in another world. Yea, Jules, relax, I thought. I’m glad you’re comfortable. You could have at least held onto my arm while I took on this road. The tires slipped and I squeezed the wheel, showing white at my knuckles. If it were up to me I would have never chosen this cabin, though, I wouldn’t tell Julie that. It would break her heart. Her parents had rented it as a wedding gift and we have kept the tradition all these years. Give me the beach any day.
          The road had acquired a deep coating of snow. Everything on the hillside was white. Between the road and the mountains, you couldn’t tell if you were on the verge of driving into a snow-covered embankment or continuing up the path. In the distance, it appeared that the rolling hills had blended with the sky, forming into a single ashen canvas.
          Face it, it was here, and not letting up. Either drive a hundred miles back home or drive five to the cabin.
          The good news was that not one single car traveled with us. The bad news was that because of that, there were no tire marks to guide us.
         After feeling another slip beneath me, I slowed the Corvette to a safe thirty miles per hour. A slope of rock and trees was to our left. To our right, an incline you couldn’t walk down without losing your footing and tumbling to the bottom. A drop of maybe three hundred feet.
          Just remember, I thought, clenching my jaws, when you get there you can forget this road, you can forget work, and you can forget every little problem that waited for you back home. You can just relax with Julie, and that’s what you need. That’s what you both need.
          I flipped the wipers to a faster speed, lowered my head, and kept track of the road by eyeing the indentation at the sides. Be safe and drive slow, was the tune repeating in my mind.
          After a few moments, Julie came out of Jan Burke’s world and back into ours. She looked up and saw how white the mountains had become.
          “Wow,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”
          “We should pull over.”
          “Don’t be a baby, Sam. You’re doing fine. Just look at this mountain. It’s just like our wedding night.”
          Hearing her took away the tension, made me forget about the road for a moment.
          “Yeah, it is nice, isn’t it?”
          “Sure is, can’t wait to get there. I hope we get snowed in for a few extra days again. You going to start a fire this year?” she asked.
          “Of course, babe,” I said. During these trips, her face had the expression of a twelve-year-old girl getting ready for Christmas the next morning. It was contagious. I gave her a smile. Her eyes brightened. Driving through the snowstorm of the century was pure hell, but at least I got to see her this way.
          A gust of wind took a swing at the car, causing it to veer to the left. I straightened it back up.
          “Hope Anthony gives us a bottle of wine this year,” she said.
          Anthony was the owner of Visco Cabins, a grey-haired man in his early fifties. “He will,” I told her. “Ridge Mountain Apple, like always.”
          Her eyes went wide; she smiled and let out a long, “Mmmmm.”
         “Are you going to get wild again, babe? You know what happens when you drink.”
          “Oh, Sam you know you like it. What’s wrong with your sexy drunk wife running around the cabin stripping her clothes off?”
          I smiled. Felt a tingle at my face from the image.
          “I saw that,” she said.
          “What?”
          “That little smile there.”
          I laughed. She looked out her window and I put my hand on her leg and felt her thigh. It wasn’t muscular but it wasn’t fat either. I slid my fingers towards her middle. She was still turned away. Her brown hair covered her face but I could see red glowing below her left eye. She giggled. Twenty years, I thought. Married for that long and we could still bring blush to each other’s faces.
          She spread her legs and let me rub her, closing her eyes while I did. She turned to me and grabbed the bottom of her shirt.
          “You want a sneak preview of Drunk Julie?” she said, and flashed me the swell of her left breast. Nipple, coffee color, and small.
          That was when I blushed.
          We both laughed.
          “Eyes on the road now, Mister,” she said.
          I saw movement at the peak of the mountain a few hundred yards from us and to our left. There, under a pine tree, a patch of snow had risen from the ground and had started moving. An avalanche? I thought.
          Wind blew again, the car veered. I went right. My God, it must have been traveling thirty miles an hour, maybe more, to do that. Damn this mountain. What the hell were we doing here? Why were we so traditional? We could have just stayed home every year. Couldn’t her parents have rented us a condo on the beach?
          “I have a surprise for you,” Julie said.
          “Oh, what are you going to show me now?”
          “No, something much bigger than that. But I want to save it for the cabin, Okay?”
          “Bigger than that?”
          She nodded, grinning.
          “Ok,” I shrugged.
          “I’ll have Anthony send us over one of those peach pies.”
          I looked over at her; she was trying to change the subject. I let her. “That sounds good. I love those pies. What does he put in them?” I said, and looked up at the slope. What was coming at us? The thing had moved father down. If it were an avalanche, it was one with a single ball of snow. Was this thing going to hit us?
          Another slip of the wheels. Slowing down. Eyes back on the road.
          “Cream cheese and cinnamon,” she said.
          “On a pie?”
          “Yup, but hey, it’s good.”
          “Can’t argue there.”
          At the hill, the white, blurry patch was closer. It was by a tree. As we neared, it became clear that a deer was slipping down the slope. Once it regained its footing, it jumped from the base of the incline and landed on the road. Its fur, as white as a sheet of paper. It was either albino or covered in snow. It stood at the center of the left lane. I eased my brake and the deer took a few steps. I put more pressure on the pedal. The wheels lost contact with the blacktop and we were now gliding over the road. My hands tightened around the wheel, sweat moistened my grip. My teeth were aching from pressing them together.
          The deer had moved into my lane. I went left to avoid it. The car fishtailed, a quick burst of it, and the back end struck the deer. The hit was loud, Julie jumped. The deer’s hind legs left the ground and came down; it remained standing, however. I turned the wheel back to the right lane. It was still under my control, I thought.
          Once there, a blast of wind caused the Corvette to veer left. When it straddled the double yellow line I heard Julie say, “You got it baby?” She was grabbing my arm tightly, her words tripping from her mouth.
          “Yeah, I got it.” I turned right, sharp. Rubber found road beneath the snow, once more, and grabbed on. In my lane again, I tried to straighten it up.
          “Baby? Are you fine, are we fine, is everything ok?” Julie was pressing the back of her head into the seat, sinking inches into the fabric. She was stiff, eyes fixed to the road. She still held on to my arm.
          Shut up! I screamed in my head. Not right now. Let me get it back.
          She dug her fingernails into my skin. It felt like dogs teeth.
          The deer was gone, had run over the hillside. The trouble had passed. However, when I felt the back end of the vehicle getting ahead of the front, I knew I had lost it.
          I reached my right arm out, shielding Julie, grasping the side of her seat. Holding her in place. Come on, stay on the road, I urged.
          “We’re fine,” I mumbled between pressed lips as the car did a spin. I gassed it once we were turned around, hoping the wheels would dig down into the snow and catch again. Nothing. I pushed the brake to the floor. Nothing. “We’re fine,” I said again. I was saying it for her sake; I didn’t believe it for one bit.
          Facing the opposite direction now, the tires fell off the edge of the road. The bottom of the car smacked the rim of the blacktop, snapping both of our heads down and then up. I looked over at Julie as the car lifted and turned on its side. Her bottom lip trembled, her eyes pinched closed, disappearing behind thin layer of wrinkled skin. When the car landed on its top, the roof bent, coming in on us. At the sound of the first crunch and whine of twisting metal, Julie screamed. It hurt to hear her and my chest went cold.
          I held her down when the car tipped again. She was not wearing a seat belt. You knew how bad the roads were, I thought. Why did you not strap in? She was shoving her hands into the roof, her arms bending.
          After another roll, the windshield cracked; a spider web pattern that spread out from the center obscured the glass. From our sides came a shower of luminous shards, pouring over both of us. Cold air rushed in.
          She was reaching for her door, and trying to open it, when the car rolled again.
          “No, don’t move, stay where you are.” I said.
          She snapped her hands from the handle and plastered them back to ceiling. The roof was getting closer. I could hear her whimpering.
          Another roll. Julie’s mouth went impossibly wide as the ceiling came in on the top of her head, pressing down, and bending her neck to the right.
          “Hold on baby,” I screamed. “It’s almost over.”
          More rolls as the car gained momentum. I could feel my legs breaking as the dash came in on them, crushing them, pinning me in the seat. The car rolled five more times before landing beneath some pines at the edge of the surrounding forest. And then everything went black.


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