Making It

The car sputtered & steamed up Highway 5 from the Third Line towards Clappisons Corners at Highway 6, rising westward up the long side of the escarpment to crest above Hamilton, I said the diesel injectors were clogged but it could be something worse, threatening us with a stalled engine while a torn heater hose bled coolant over the motor & vapourized into miasmas that wafted through the dashboard heater vents as we climbed. I sustained the fuel pressure & the core temperature rise through the ball of my foot as shoe & pedal fought for continuum, while beside me you held your hands in your head and tried not to break down before the car: we held chaos at bay even as the upward nudges of the heat gauge verged on eruption & the fuel stream squeezed molecule by molecule between the gap sustained as forward motion while my will and your prayers crested that long slope under mounting pressure, our breaths held until we thought we'd failed on 6 in the northward drive when sputter & steam & fume came to a stop in Puslinch, where I stood in the dark night beneath the one light in the hamlet and coaxed the baked coolant scented car back into life & we made it home, only united in relief once we had parked in our spot behind the row-houses on Grange.