By Cynthia Adams

There were warning signs before Dad finished packing Mama’s pea-green-colored Samsonite luggage set into the new-to-us station wagon. In the days before soft-sided luggage, such cases were hardshell, hideous and unyielding. Her clothing and makeup cases alone claimed most of the cargo space.

Our Great Canadian Trek was so auspicious Dad had passed over the usual Yank tanks — huge Caddies and stinkin’ Lincolns — for a second-hand forest-green station wagon with faux-wood accents. My brothers were excited. My sister and I less so. 

And then I saw my father surreptitiously stuffing in wholesale-sized boxes of Almond Joys, Baby Ruths, Tootsie Rolls, Fireballs and Butterfingers. It dawned on me: He planned to fill us up on sweets so he wouldn’t have to spend money eating out on the road. 

Arguing commenced about who would sit where. My youngest brother wanted to wedge himself in the rear beside the candy boxes.

Before we’d left the driveway, our wheel man was fuming. “Shut the ‘H’ up!” he commanded, soon adding the puzzling: “Don’t make me stop this car!” He hadn’t actually even started it.

My thoughts turned to the Donner party and other god-awful, doomed expeditions. There were 1,500 miles yawning ahead between Hell’s Half Acre and Nova Scotia. Ironically, Dad promised Prince Edward Island, the inspiration for my beloved Anne of Green Gables, would make it all worthwhile.

The AC spluttered then died as we rolled through northern Virginia on new Michelins Dad couldn’t stop bragging about. He was not much on getting repairs even as he mumbled about having the Freon checked. Fanning herself, my mother muttered, “So much for driving in comfort.”

Dad, gray eyes narrowing, accelerated onto the interstate and shouted to the hesitating driver in front of us, “The sign says ‘YIELD,’ for God sakes, not ‘give up’!” 

I sulked, too, wondering if my new crush would even remember me weeks later. 

Dad barked at me to toss some candy to the youngest ones as soon as they began hinting about hamburgers. They devoured sweets, grew antic, then complained about the heat, which increased as we approached the Chesapeake area.

Mom suddenly shrieked. “The sign says there’s a tunnel ahead!”

She was completely petrified of tunnels and long bridges.

Dad commenced reassuring her that she would be OK. I looked forward to the tunnel, assuming it was cool inside. I hissed, “If we drown, we drown.” Dad looked back and shot me a murderous look. Mom paled.

Things did not improve as we skirted New York. In fact, the northward journey became a blur of heat/exhaustion/sugar comas and quibbling. The days (and chocolate candies) melted as everyone’s tempers shortened. 

Memorably, we found cooler temps as we hit New England, stopping off in Lincoln, Maine, to visit Dad’s friends, the Lloyds. We learned they were putting us up, but in separate houses. My younger sister and I stayed with Miss Lillian in a Victorian greatly resembling the Addams Family home.

That night, my sister pressed a button near the antique headboard. The kindly widow knocked gently at the door. “Yes, dears?” she asked. 

The button had once been used to summon servants.

“My sweet Herman used that to call me when he was ill,” she explained sweetly. As soon as the door closed, I said Herman likely died in our bed. My youngest sister, age 11, was terrified but tried to hide it. Instead, she refused to share the same bed, taking her pillow and our blanket to lay on the rug, where she remained until morning.

At breakfast, I insisted the pot of full cream on Miss Lillian’s table was “northern milk” and watched as my gullible sister poured a glass and took a huge swig. Meantime, our mother discovered bears feasting on wild blueberries in the Lloyd’s backyard, terrifying her.

By the time we lumbered into Canada, we were thoroughly sick of each other. By the first Canadian sunrise, Dad — ever eager to buy property — met with a Realtor. The innkeeper knocked at my door, saying Dad had arranged for me and my sister to help out with housekeeping in exchange for lower room rates.

We grudgingly complied because, well, we’re Southerners. Dad also rejected driving to the Green Gables heritage site. Instead, we returned via Moncton, experiencing the much-ballyhooed Magnetic Hill. As Dad and my brothers exclaimed, I sighed dramatically.

As we continued homeward, nerves shot, Mom overruled Dad and chose a white-tablecloth restaurant, where we (inscrutably) ordered six tomato juice cocktails while he was in the bathroom. Seeing the waiter place juices on a little saucer before all of us, he exploded, “Do you think I’m made of money?” All eyes followed as we noisily scraped our chairs away from the table and departed.

There were more proverbial straws soon to break the camel’s fractured back. Naturally, the car threw a fan belt before we made it to the Mason Dixon Line. The radiator blew, too, prompting me to dub the wagon “Moby Dick.”

We dressed in shorts and T-shirts, seeking relief from the heat, but my sweat-damp thighs stuck to the brown Naugahyde seats. Each shift of my posture produced embarrassing fart-like noises, delighting my siblings. My youngest brother imitated this, producing a gross symphony of sounds to accompany the miles southward — an obscene vacation soundtrack.

Despite Moby Dick’s many ills, and our laments and complaints, Dad finally docked him in our driveway.

I leaped out, pirouetted in the gravel, and raced inside to claim the aqua-colored Princess phone by my parents’ bed. 

Later, my father and brothers remembered the trip positively. They would extol New England’s abundant beauty, plus lack of litter, billboards and heat, seemingly forgetting all else. Dad would tell all listeners about the mystery of Magnetic Hill.

But my mother’s brow would raise, her eyes round before exploding. “Tunnels and bridges! Bears in Maine! Overtaxed hairspray costs in Canada! Miles of nothing! That hideous, hot station wagon! Never. Again.”

“Say what you want,” Dad would muse affably, a changed man once home in his easy chair. “That’s some bee-yoo-tee-ful country up there. Can’t wait to get back.”  OH

Cynthia Adam is a contributing editor to O.Henry magazine.