Page 39 of Love Conquers All

It was a twenty-hour drive to Birmingham, Alabama. There was no question about the way they would travel. Driving electric was the way to go. Flights were environmentally wasteful and best to avoid if possible.

It would be a long trip. But they’d charted a course based on where they could recharge the car and where they could sleep comfortably. They’d decided ten hours per day was just fine with them as long as nothing went wrong.

“This is sort of what we used to dream of as kids,” Graham said when they were about an hour outside of Hyannis. “We always wanted to go on a road trip.”

“Until we figured out how wasteful that was,” Sylvie said. “Gosh, we were idealistic, weren’t we? We must have been the most annoying kids in the world.”

She wondered if they were the most annoying adults, too. But at least they were together in that. Ha.

“But now we can really do it! We can really road trip! On our own terms!” Graham snapped his hand on the steering wheel. He hadn’t yet asked Sylvie if she’d read the journals. He hadn’t yet asked her why she’d been so frightened when he’d told her about them.

But that was the thing about Graham. He didn’t pry when he sensed you didn’t want him to.

Around one thirty, they stopped for lunch at a diner and expressed their pride at the ground they’d already covered. Sylvie confirmed her appointment with the alligator farmer for two days from now, and she and Graham laughed at how ridiculous it would be down there, how hot and sticky. They discussed finding a good vegan barbecue place and searched online. Unsurprisingly, there weren’t many options. Most everyone down south wanted the real deal when it came to barbecue.

“But isn’t barbecue all about the sauce?” Graham asked, mystified.

“I think we’ve been vegetarian for too long to know for sure,” Sylvie said with a laugh.

“Were you ever tempted to eat meat again?” Graham asked.

“Never!” Sylvie said.

“Me neither,” Graham said. “Hannah sometimes ate meat, though. She felt guilty, but she said there were some flavors that she would have missed too much if she went full vegetarian all the time.”

This was the first time Graham had brought up his wife in a while. Sylvie took a bite of her grilled cheese and chewed slowly. She hated how easy it was for her to picture Graham and Hannah, cozy at home in Chicago, wearing pajamas, watchingtelevision, exchanging funny stories, and talking about going to the store. Had she and Mike ever been so easy with one another?

There was a moment of silence. Sylvie put down her sandwich.

“I’m sorry,” Graham said. “I shouldn’t have…”

But Sylvie interrupted him. “I want you to be able to talk about whatever you want to talk about. I don’t have many friends. But I want to be your friend. I want to hear you and know you and carry your pain.”

It was earnest. It was a lot. But the way Graham looked at Sylvie now made Sylvie feel cherished. He reached out to touch her hand.

“I want to hear you and know you and carry your pain,” he echoed. “Right back at you.”

Sylvie wondered if she was playing with fire. She questioned if they both would regret this. But she held his hand for another few minutes, her heart pounding.

Just let me feel all of it,she begged the universe.Don’t let him slip away. Not yet.

But on the second night of their trip at around 6:30 p.m.—a couple of hours from their final hotel destination—everything ended in near disaster.

Low on power, Graham had routed them to a nearby electric vehicle charging station. But when they drove out to it, they realized it was out of order, with grass and plants growing through it. This far south, the air was as thick as a milkshake. The charging station itself looked like it belonged to a long-gone time.

Graham searched online for another charging station, but the next one was many miles away, and they weren’t sure if they would make it. They certainly couldn’t make it all the way to their hotel. Sylvie watched the light drain from Graham’s eyes.

A strange thought occurred to her.These are the kinds of mini-disasters that married people go through all the time.

What did it mean that they were taking this on together?

“Let’s just get a different hotel,” she said. “We can get a headstart tomorrow and make up for lost time.”

Tomorrow at ten in the morning, Sylvie was supposed to meet the alligator farmer. It meant they’d have to leave here by five o’clock. But after an exhausting two days of driving, resting up and preparing for tomorrow felt like the best possible solution.

The nearest hotel with an electric vehicle charging station was forty-five minutes out of their way. Sylvie felt a sense of dread in her gut until they reached it. Graham whistled with relief and got out to plug the car in. Sylvie went in to grab two rooms for them, both of which she expensed with the magazine she was writing for. She and Graham agreed to freshen up and meet at the hotel restaurant for dinner and drinks.

When Sylvie went to her room, she spent far too much time on her lipstick and eye makeup.Why am I acting like this is a date?

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