Christmas Ride

I had always loved driving. I listen to CDs, never a radio. The familiarity of beloved music both lulls and excites me. My mind cleared up for free association thinking. I would plot stories behind the wheel, "write" scenes and let my subconscious work through back burner-ed issues in fiction and reality.
In my infinite wisdom, I decided I would drive to my parents’ house on Christmas Eve 2010. I’m a Polack, kinda-sorta. Christmas Eve is supposed to be important. I had missed the prior year. I was better. I thought there was no reason to miss another. I was, after all, better.
I had not seen the only sibling I had any relationship[ with in a year or more and for some reason I still do not fully understand, I had a yearning to. Maybe in my mind there was a knowledge that my ability to see him would only get more limited, literally. I go through those phases sometimes, feeling nostalgia for relations that never truly existed. The last time we had spent together was when I helped him move into his house, circa 1985. I had nothing specific to say to him. I pictured the conversation we might have in free-thought imaginings during the forty mile highway road "home" to my parents’. The thoughts didn’t fill either his or my mouth with witty repertoire or fraternal bond. It was more of a rehearsal for the dry and generic questions he could ask of a former coworker than someone raised in the same house for ten years. (He’s a bit older.)
The drive down was incidental, mostly highway where I am buffered from oncoming headlights that would misadjust my focus. I knew the areas where I was coming and going, including the maze-twisted development in which my parents lives.
I had forgotten how dark the old neighborhood was. Planning had included underground wiring that left no poles for street lights. My old-fart, over-cautious, can’t-see-it-til-you’re-past-it driving allowed someone with highbeams to overtake me. The highbeams blinded me. I missed a crucial turn and could not see houses well enough to regain my bearings. I couldn’t call my parents or brother for help because I could not have told them where in the maze I was lost.
I found my way out of the neighborhood over the next hour. I went around the long and easier way with only two turns.
As for that conversation with my brother, my imaginings might have well been a script. He asked each of those generic, boring questions I had anticipated, no more and no less. I wondered why I had bothered. The answer came in my reflections on the way home, those free association subconscious resolutions. Over years of warm silence and close distance, I had come to realize that I had no relationship with any sibling, including this old favorite one. I knew with increasing certainty that the days when I could just hop in the car and visit him were ending for me. (Not that I had ever done so in decades.) I had gone to wordlessly say goodbye.