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With trepidation, I set my feet onto the cold basement floor.
The house is quiet as I shuffle across the kitchen to stand in the window—my breath fogs up the cold glass in front of me. The gently falling flakes from last night transitioned into a full-blown storm while we slept, and the world has turned wintry white. Trees bow under the weight of fresh snow. The mountains wear sparkling, powdery caps. I’d never get tired of this view.
Lisa’s cookie bars are still on the counter, so I pick up the plate and dump them straight into the trash, covering the evidence with yesterday’s coffee grounds, and start a fresh pot. What do I have to lose?
On a roll now, I get breakfast started. Why wait for Mom to get up?
The smell of coffee and cooking meat is like a siren call and people slowly tumble in. Soon the TV is on in the other room, the theme music to How the Grinch Stole Christmas! filtering through the house.
“Thank you for getting this started, honey.” Mom pulls her hair back into a bun, slips on her Mrs. Claus apron, and takes the wooden spoon from my hand, wordlessly telling me that she’ll take it from here.
When I stand over the sink, I see Andrew already outside and shoveling the driveway. He’s got a beanie tugged low over his hair but even from here I can see his cheeks flushed against the cold, the way his coat stretches across his back. The coat is thick, but I can easily imagine the way his muscles shift with the effort he’s taking to dig the shovel beneath heavy piles of—
“Mae, honey, can you hand me the—oh.”
I startle, turning to find my mother standing beside me. “What? What’s ‘oh’?”
She struggles to look oblivious. “Nothing. Just needed”— she grabs a spatula from the drying rack—“this.”
“I was just looking at the view while I clean up.”
“Of course.”
I turn on the water, rinse a clean dish again. “It’s pretty out.”
She lifts a brow and glances at the window. “It is pretty.”
I give her a look. Indulging my mother in this kind of thing will only lead to disaster. “The snow.”
Feet shuffle behind us, and a groggy Theo mumbles, “Did it snow?”
“It did.” Mom looks at Andrew once more, and then gives me a playful smirk before walking away. When I turn back to the window, Andrew is looking up at the house, and when our eyes meet, he throws a cheeky little wave.
My face flushes and I return the wave before turning off the faucet. I have no idea if he caught me watching him, or if I just caught him watching me, but my heart is pounding. No matter what he said last night, I don’t think we’re going back to normal anytime soon.
• • •
I’m sure no mother alive would be surprised by how long it takes us to get out of the house. Is every family such a mess? Miles walks in on Aaron in the shower and slips on the bathmat in an attempt to flee. Kyle can’t find his boots. Ricky can’t find his keys. Kennedy doesn’t like pants, and Theo gets sidetracked looking for WD-40 in the basement because his truck door is squeaking. When we’re all finally ready, we pile into our small caravan of vehicles for the short drive up the mountain. Once we step out of the cars, the wind is bitingly cold; we’re no longer protected by the thick trees near the cabin. In the end, Kennedy is glad she wore pants.
Bundled head to toe, we hop on the ski lift and watch as the trees and sledders on the slopes grow smaller and smaller beneath us. It snowed way more up here than in the valley, and the view is glorious. The sky is crystal blue, and the air is clear and smells like cold and pine, the storm having knocked down any lingering haze.
The wind at the top is brutal, and we all bend into it as we negotiate who is sledding with whom. Dad hovers, waiting for me to climb on board with him, but the truth is that I’m pretty sure he wants off the hook anyway.
Dad is a terrible sled partner. He can drive a car as capably as the next guy, but he’s like a nervous grandmother on the sled. Reactive and anxious and jittery. More often than not we end up tumbling over sideways, which makes Dad feel justified in his trepidation. We’ll spend the rest of the descent slowly scooting our way down the mountainside, with Dad’s heels dug into the trail and his hand liberally working the brake, while other sledders get run after happy-screaming run down the slope.
With Kyle standing to the side, already shivering in his one thousand layers of clothing, I decide to channel Fuck-It Mae.
