The Christmas Blanket

“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.