The Last Turn

Dan leaned back in his seat and took a drag from his cigarette. He blew the smoke out the window and watched the wind carry it back into the dust behind his truck. His toes pressed the gas pedal down into the ground and felt the engine roar.

He felt more comfortable here, hurtling down rural roads in a dented tin can on wheels, than he ever did around people. That's why part of him felt heartbroken to retire from his mail truck a few years ago. There was nowhere that felt more natural to him than the worn-in faux leather seat that had molded to him over the years. He missed the way it rumbled beneath him. He missed the squeak and hiss of the brakes as he slid to a stop in front of a mailbox, and the sound of the wind through the corn fields. It was the soundtrack of his life for fifty years.

He never could sit still in one place. Never could settle down with one woman. He was married to the road. He honeymooned down dirt roads with a full gas tank in his trunk. One summer he wandered into a sleepy coal town and gave a piece of his heart to the bright-eyed waitress who smiled at him when no one else would. He waited for her shift to end and they giggled as they traced their fingers over the names carved into the tables. She begged him to stay, but he left her misty eyed before the leaves had started to turn. He said he never regretted his solitary life. But late at night, when he lay wide awake in bed watching the fireflies outside his window, thoughts would creep into his head about what he left behind.

An outsider might say retirement had been kind to Dan. He received a solid pension for his decades of service, his garden outside the city was flourishing, and he had spent the majority of his golden days reading books in the big armchair he kept next to the window. But he got up with the sun every morning like he did for his mail routes for years. Except now, he would wake up with an empty ache in his chest instead of a spring in his step.

He had been driving for a couple weeks now with just the radio and the open road keeping him company. He liked it that way. No text message alerts. No one whining in his ear. No one to ask him questions he didn't know how to answer.

He put together this route himself, from his old hometown in Ohio down through Tennessee and toward the peach groves in Georgia. All the places he had driven through over the years. All the places he had loved and lost. This time, he was in a beat-up pick-up truck instead of the glossy white mail truck with the decals on the sides. He didn't have any deliveries to make or schedules to stick to. But deep down, he was hoping to find something along the way.

He had driven on this road many times, many years ago. It was paved now, and the town had installed streetlights. But he still remembered the little gas station with the broken pump and the way the sycamore trees framed the red sun as it dipped below the horizon. The old school was still standing, though barely, and an old woman was sweeping the leaves outside the general store that had served the town since the Civil War. Dan could've sworn he was back in 1983 until he caught a glimpse of the lines etched into his forehead in the rearview mirror.

Dusk had begun to fall on the town, and the first stars were twinkling faintly through the windshield. Dan saw a bright neon light in the distance. There was something beautiful about the magenta and cyan glow on the dark countryside, and he couldn't take his eyes off the aura of light around the building. Dan was certain this was another new addition to the town. He would've remembered a sight like this around here. His truck slowed as it approached the neon sign reading "DINER" and rolled into the empty parking lot.

Dan felt his stomach grumble. "Well," he said, slapping the dashboard, "Guess it's time to fuel up."

The truck slid to a stop in a space in front of a great red door. Surrounding the door was an exterior constructed from hundreds of chrome panels. There didn't appear to be any windows on the place. Dan hesitated as he reached over to push the door open. He stepped in to find a woman behind the host stand with her neck bent down over a clipboard.

Dan started, "Hi, I—"

"Take a seat." She kept her eyes focused downward and waved him away.

Dan slipped into a booth. The diner was silent save for the bubbling coffeepot and the waitress' nail tapping on the clipboard. He looked around at the black-and-white framed photos on the walls, the turquoise ceramic tile, and the stained glass lamps over the booths. He flattened his palms on the cold, yellow linoleum table. His thumb absentmindedly rubbed the surface and felt the "D" scratched in. His heart jumped into his throat.

"What can I get you?" The woman had appeared right next to him.

He whipped his head over and stared into her glittering blue eyes. "May," he breathed.

May smiled. He searched her face for a line, a sun spot, anything that might show the years marked on her face, but found nothing. She still had those round, pink cheeks and blonde curls pulled back with a blue ribbon. She set a menu down in front of him.

Dan stared at her with his jaw hanging open. "Is that really you? After all these years? What are you doing up here?"

May's smile never wavered. "What can I get you?" She repeated.

Dan blinked at her. What was happening? Why didn't she remember him? "Uh, what do you have?"

"Honey, we haven't changed our menu since General Lee marched through town. What do you need?"

Dan felt tears well up in his eyes. "I—I don't know. I thought I knew then. I thought I'd know now. But I'm seventy-five years old, and I've been driving around and around all this time without knowing where I'm supposed to be going."

May gave him an odd look and clasped her hands in front of her. "Maybe you got here right when you were supposed to be." Her eyes widened. "You know, there's an inn down the street. You don't have to rush off into the moonlight. You could stay a while. At least until my shift ends."

Dan smiled. Maybe this was exactly where he was supposed to be. Back to the start, a fresh start. One he'd never have to drive away from.

"That sounds nice," he said.

Dan glanced around the diner again, taking in the flickering lamps and faded photographs. Everything looked untouched by time, like it had been waiting for him to return.

He turned back to May. “What is this place, really?”

May tilted her head, her smile softening as she took another step toward him. “This place is for people who aren’t ready to move on.”

Dan looked down at his hands trembling against the table. A coldness crept into him, the kind of chill that comes when you realize you’ve crossed into something you don’t fully understand. May’s eyes were kind, but there was something behind them now. Not malice, just knowing. Too much knowing.

The lamps flickered again. The photos on the wall shifted ever so slightly and faces he hadn’t noticed before now stared directly at him. One of them looked like his mother. Another like himself, decades younger.

Dan stood abruptly. “I—I should go,” he muttered.

May didn’t try to stop him. She only gave him a small, sad smile, as if she’d seen this before. Dan pushed past May and hurried to his car, locking the door behind him. He drove away with his heart pounding in his chest as he used a shaking hand to open up the map.

“This was a good place to turn around,” he whispered.

The road behind him vanished on the map as the diner disappeared in his rearview window.