5 Days.  2,000 Miles.  Finale.Tuesday, July 3.The worst is finally over.  I’ve managed to get through the funeral without bursting into flames.  It’s the social hour after, no one has to mention the J-word (Jesus).  Janie is still doing well; later my cousin Brenda tells me that she checked in with her frequently throughout the afternoon.  At one point Janie tells me she’s going to go sit out in the hall where it’s quiet, she hasn’t needed to use the text-message Plan B after all.Despite the sad occasion it is pleasant to catch up with these relatives, several of whom have adult children I have never seen before.  Amy has two charming and very entertaining sons in their mid-20s.  April (the cousin who shares my birthday) has two in elementary school who are growing fast.  Brenda’s kids are in middle school, it’s fun to watch the way they get along.  Bruce, who just turned 60, is about to be a father for the first time.The drive back is uneventful, we are once again grateful to Janie’s knowledge of rest area locations, so we are able to make strategic stops on the way back.  I return the minivan, pickup my car, am back at my friend Jeff’s house around 8.  When he gets off work we walk and he lets me de-brief the trip.  I’m basically okay, but want to expunge all the fundamentalism, so he agrees to go out dancing with me.  There are a whopping two gay bars in my hometown – the first one is dead, dead, dead, but we meet a couple there I’d met a few years earlier and chat.  At midnight we head over to the other one – better DJ, more people, more fun, I dance my ass off.  I’m not very good at it, but I don’t care, I need to be immersed in an atmosphere that feels like mine, that isn’t hostile, that will let me forget how hard I’ve had to run my psychic defenses in the last 48 hours.  The bar closes at 2, we leave shortly before that, and by 2:30 I’m asleep.Wednesday, July 4th.Mom wants me to come see them before I leave for home.  They’ve been trying to get all their chores done before dark because neither one of them can get up on a step stool to change the ceiling lights when they burn out.  There’s so much more that they need done for them, a black hole of requirement that I could never completely fulfill even if I gave up my job, moved in with them and didn’t need to sleep ever again.  I’m emotionally drained from the trip, the driving, and the staying on guard.  The bulbs get changed.We sit in the kitchen, my car is packed, I need to leave soon, it is at least 10 hours (with a lead foot) before I will walk in my own front door.  I need to make it back without stopping, as I no longer have enough cash (on me or in the bank) to break up the trip with a motel stop.  Mom asks me:“Do I look good to you?  For someone my age?”My poor little old mother, almost 80, a walking encyclopedia of medical conditions – how do I answer that one?  With truth from the heart, not a medical evaluation.“You’re breathing, smiling, and can still give me a hug.  You look good to me.”The goodbyes are said, I’ve already fare-welled Janie the day before when I dropped her off at her apartment.  By 3:00 pm I’m on my way.Coffee, coffee, diet Pepsi, coffee, coffee, pee.  Pretty much all I do on the Thruway.  After dark I get the occasional glimpse of fireworks.  By midnight I reach the Massachusetts line, my cell phone buzzes.  It’s Brenda.  Thank goodness for Brenda and the bluetooth earpiece.  She talks me through the final two hours of my drive, filling me in on more family news, cousin reactions, more Nellie stories, thoughts about the four sisters and how they shaped us.  Sarah Belle (Sally) who was Brenda’s mother, Jean, who died of diabetes in the 1980s, Evelyn, my mother, and Nellie, the youngest.  I need to write about them.  I need to write about their legacy.  I need to write the eulogy that will comfort me when my mother passes so that I don’t have to hear what the small-town Baptist preacher is likely to say.The drive ends at 2:30 – heavy rain in the Berkshires and frequent bladder stops have added to my time. George has waited up in the family room, napping on the sofa with the cordless phone on the pillow.  By 3:30 the car is unloaded and shortly after that I have collapsed in my bed. This trip is finally over.