It was the farthest north they had ever been.

A long drive through a blistering blizzard, Tom constantly pulling the unheated van over to pry
the windshield wipers off the frozen windshield. No shield from the wind there. He'd learned to
breathe into his hands just enough to keep the fingers working. He knew that taking your gloves
off in a storm in northern Maine just might kill you. This was supposed to be a vacation. Taking
Martha back to see her parents in the first week of 1970. They'd met at Woodstock. Talking to
the Pig Farmers. He'd missed all the music and lost his Boy Scout pack and sleeping bag
wandering around. The Pig Farmers had food. Martha had a tarp. Ah, love! But that had gone
sour on this longest drive together. At her parents' inn he’d crawled under the sheets of a
different bed. Heaped it with all the quilts he could find. The van, he knew, would never start
again. He'd have to hitchhike home. And that might not be possible 'til spring. He stood for a
moment on the second floor porch smoking. The storm had settled. Martha came out with her
own cigarette. They stared into the night, separate beings, separated. And then it began, clear and
yellow vibrating green across the forest ridge toward Canada. The Lights. They’d never see them
again. But the daughter they conceived that night would remind them. Fifty years later. Aurora.