“I won’t,” she says, her voice flat. “I was already nervous with this storm. It’s not going to matter to the reindeer man if you stay at the cabin tonight and get to his farm in the morning, will it?”
“No,” Levi admits. “We’re not planning to be there until morning either way.”
“It matters to me,” Mrs. Taft says. “I’m a mess. The cabin is pretty well-stocked right now because we were up there for Thanksgiving and planning to go up again for New Year’s, so you’ll probably find things in the cupboard and freezer you can eat. I’ll feel better knowing you’re not going to be caught in the storm, and that should count for something.”
“I’ll feel better too,” my mom adds.
“So would I,” my dad chimes in.
“Hold on.” Levi hits mute and says, “What do you think?”
“I think we’re not going to get caught in this storm,” I tell him.
“Me either. But . . .”
“They’re right,” I say. “We’re not planning to get to the farm until the morning anyway. A couple of hours won’t make a difference. “We’ll just get on the road early.”
He unmutes the phone. “Okay, we’re going to stay at the cabin.”
“Good boy,” my mom says. Levi rolls his eyes but smiles. “Call us when you get there.”
They extract a promise from us at least three more times before he can end the call.
“It’s better than a motel.” He settles my phone back in the cupholder.
I nod. “True.”
“And the turnoff is coming up in about twenty minutes anyway.”
“Worth it if they’re not losing sleep, right?” I’m trying to talk myself into this because the idea makes me nervous, and it’s not exactly a mystery why. Last time we were here was four years ago, invited up by the Tafts for New Year’s. There was still mistletoe and eggnog in play. And rum. And highly questionable decision-making.
No, that’s not right. I can’t even say that was a decision. It was a thing that happened, not something we decided.
“Right,” he says. “It’s a pretty simple way to calm their nerves, I guess.”
Maybe. But all I know is that this change in plans is stretching mine even tighter.
Chapter Nine
Levi
Taylordoesn’thavemuchto say when I hang up with the parents. The audiobook fills the silence as we reach the cabin turnoff from the state highway. It puts us on a county road for seven miles, then a final turn puts us on a private road for another mile. The private road winds up the mountain, and there’s evidence of the last snowfall still frozen in clumps around the base of tree trunks where the sun isn’t as strong, and along the tops of small boulders and shadowed patches of earth.
“Getting colder,” Taylor says, her eye on the dashboard temperature display. It had dropped by ten degrees already on the gentle incline of the county road, and it’s dropping more as we climb toward the cabin.
I lean forward, an old, familiar excitement percolating in my stomach like it used to do when I was a kid waiting for our first glimpse of the place. Whether it was for a week of summer delinquency or gatherings at Thanksgivings and New Year celebrations, coming here had always meant fun.
Doctoring makes my dad decent money, but they gave up a lot of things to afford this cabin. They bought it when I was about eight, and it became every family vacation after that. Sometimes I wished we could go cool places that other kids traveled to, but I’m already smiling before the cabin even comes into view. It’s so full of good memories, and I wouldn’t trade that for Disney World.
A battered white post about four feet high with a reflector on it marks our turnoff, and I point it out to Taylor. “There’s the driveway.”
“Driveway” might be an understatement. It’s a road leading to two cabins. A smaller gravel one, but still a road. Ours is first. The one farther up belongs to a family called the Egberts, who we know well enough to say hello to but not well enough to hang out with. They have a couple of girls, but the oldest one is at least ten years younger than me.
After a half mile, we reach the cabin, and Taylor pulls around the back, where we’ve always parked between the cabin and the detached garage.
She turns off the car. “I’m not used to being here without a metric ton of stuff to schlep in.”
It’s true. Usually there are suitcases and bags of groceries to haul. It’s pretty weird to be grabbing only my backpack. “I guess we can bring in all the food the moms sent us with so it’ll feel like old times.”
