“I am lost without you. What a hauntingly beautiful thing to say to a person — that whether you are off on another wild adventure or in the familiar quiet comfort of your very own home, you are all the same, enormously lost, whenever you are without them.”
— Beau Tapin
“Have a holly, jolly whoamygodshiiiii!”
I braked as gently as I could, holding onto my wheel for dear life and squinting through the windshield of the rental car I’d picked up from the Burlington airport. Burl Ives continued singing his merry cheer through the car speakers, but I was too busy trying to keep my car on the slick road that was quickly covering with snow to join him.
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed when the car was steady again, and I slowed even more, practically to a crawl since I’d already been going just twenty miles per hour. But that was how it went when you were driving in the snow in Vermont, and I remembered well how awful it could be and how conditions could change at a moment’s notice.
Add that to the list of things I did not miss when I moved away.
My knuckles were white where they held the wheel steady, and I cursed under my breath as the sun set even more, the snow falling quicker as the sky got darker. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find snow in my path once I pulled off the highway and on the backroads that would lead me to my parents’ house in eastern Vermont, but expected or not, I knew the last thirty minutes of my drive would not be fun.
I tried to relax, blowing out a breath and humming along to the next Christmas song that filled my car. The music, coupled with me being back in Vermont for the first time in four years, had me faintly feeling the Christmas spirit, something I hadn’t had even a hint of since I was a teenager.
I could already envision the Christmas tree in the corner of my parents’ living room, ornaments my sister and I had made throughout childhood hanging from the limbs. I could smell Mom’s pumpkin pie, and Grandma’s stuffing, and Dad’s pineapple brown sugar ham.
My stomach growled as a smile spread on my face. Driving through the snow sucked, but soon, I’d be home again.
There was another pinch in my stomach, one not born of hunger, when I remembered who else would be waiting for me in Wellhaven. Not that he knew I was coming, or would care that I was back, and he certainly wouldn’t want to see me.
But he’d be there, nonetheless.
And just that fact was enough to twist my guts.
I took a right on the old county road a mile from Lake Wellhaven, the lake our little town was built on, knowing it wouldn’t be long now. Just a couple miles, a left, a bumpy old road and a long, worn-out driveway separated me from a hug from my mama.
And the best thing was that she didn’t even know I was coming.
Ever since I left Wellhaven four years ago, freshly twenty-four with a dream in my heart and a goodbye kiss on my mama’s cheek, she’d been begging me to come back for a holiday. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter — hell, she told me President’s Day would be just fine, as long as she could see me. But I’d been on an adventure of my own, one that hadn’t made it possible for me to come back home.
Until now.
The last four years had taken me all over the world — South Africa, Europe, Asia, Canada, Mexico. Most recently, I’d been on a work visa in New Zealand for the spring and first part of summer, which was fall and winter here, and I’d made it back to the states just in time to surprise my family for Christmas.
And for the snow to surprise me.
The negative temperatures and blistering wind outside my rental car were a drastic change from the beautiful, sunny, sixty-to-seventy degrees I’d left behind. I found myself wondering if I should have just spent the holidays there, hiking through the mountains or working on whatever yacht needed an extra crew member.
But as beautiful and as rich as New Zealand was, it didn’t have my family.
And I missed my family dearly.
A thick swallow found my throat as I made the left onto one of the oldest, bumpiest roads in our town, and I slowed the car even more, knowing that one false move on this bad boy when it was snowing would have me in the ditch. It felt like only yesterday that I’d driven on this same road the opposite way, hightailing my ass out of this town and swearing I wouldn’t be back.
I needed adventure.
I needed to explore, to travel, to be free of the crushing reality of the small town I’d grown up in.
I needed to be free of him.
I shook my head, and the image of pine-green eyes that seemed to haunt me even still, keeping my focus on the road.
But it didn’t matter.
Focusing or not, the best damn driver in the northeast or an out-of-stater driving in the snow for the very first time, nothing could have prevented what happened next.
The front left tire of my car hit a pothole buried under the snow, sending me skidding across the ice. It was getting late, the last of the sun fading, temperatures dropping, and all of that combined with the fresh snow left a slick sheet of ice on that shady part of the road that I just didn’t see.
I gripped the wheel as best I could, holding it steady, trying to slow down without braking too hard, but the car wouldn’t comply with my will. I cursed myself for not thinking to get an SUV or at least some snow tires, but I hadn’t expected a storm. I was still thinking of what I could’ve, would’ve, should’ve done when the wheels started to slide toward the left side of the road. I knew even when I did it that I involuntarily cranked the wheel too much, but it was too late to correct my mistake.
The car whipped around, sliding in reverse off the edge of the road and into the snowy ditch.
I stopped with a quiet thunk of metal against snow, or perhaps metal against the mud I knew was under that snow. I didn’t give myself time to think too much on it, though, before I was gassing it.
“Come on, come on,” I prayed under my breath as the wheels spun under me. Snow and mud went flying in my rearview mirror, the front wheels trying to find traction but coming up short. Every time it would move a little, hope would surge in my chest, but just as quickly I’d slide backward.
“Fuck!”
I let off the gas, dropping my head back to the headrest and forcing as much of a calming breath as I could in that moment. The snow was coming down even harder now, the wind picking up, and I knew I needed to get out of my car and find some traction for these wheels — fast — or I’d be in trouble.
I checked the signal on my phone, knowing before I looked that there’d be no service. There never was on this road, or most of the roads out past the little village on the lake. Wellhaven might as well have been the middle of the ocean when it came to cell service.
Calling my dad wasn’t an option, but I knew if I could just find some wood and stick it under the tires, get some traction… I could be on the road and at my parents in twenty.
I shrugged on my coat, put on my gloves, and pulled my thick, knitted beanie over my ears. Then, with one final breath and a silent you can do this, I shoved the driver-side door open.
And instantly, my breath was stolen.
It didn’t matter how thick my coat or hat or gloves were. It didn’t matter that I’d had the heat blasting inside the car. It didn’t matter that I’d at least been smart enough to put on my good, warm boots before leaving the airport. No amount of clothing could have prepared me for that icy wind.