Memories I may have had (easter snow day)

In Deposit, in January, when the lake had frozen over and the snow drifts were at our shoulders, and the fog on our breath crystallized, icicles in miniature forming in our nostrils, we would go for one last sled ride down the steep slope of the beach, our blue discs spinning towards the water, and sometimes we'd make it twenty, thirty feet on to the icy lake. Then home for hot chocolate. We would vacuum and make the beds, turn off the water at the main line and run the faucets dry. Cross our fingers that the pipes wouldn't burst and head back to the city for the winter.

We were back for easter break more often than not, after the last of the snow had melted and coils of ferns began to unravel under the pines.

Until one year, we went to bed in the spring time, and awoke to a blanket of white, packed quickly and set out in separate cars, Mom and the kids, Dad with the dog and the antique furniture he'd picked up in Walton.

They had bought walkie talkies from Radio Shack, this before their expansion into the cellphone and digital camera and tablet computer market--this, in fact, before cell phones and digital cameras. Before tablet computers.

Dad, driving quickly, was soon out of range--"Michael, can you hear me, over." Nothing. Snow and ice. The Crunching road beneath our tires. "Michael, come in Michael, over." And nothing. Static.

Once, we nearly swerved off the road, wide eyed as the car was suddenly aimed at the guard rail, the granite, icy river below, and mother's sangfroid as she steered with the skid, gained control, pointing us back, slowly, inexorably towards the meeting place. I imagine her fear now, three children, and no control.

It took three hours to drive an hour and we spent the night in a hotel, watching through the window as snow piled against the wall, reached the window, stopping three inches up, an aura of frost above it, and spots of fogged breath, circles of wonder, like the universe itself, "ha - ha - ha," breathing out, and watching our big bang shrink back to a singularity above the snowed in window.

In the morning, snow hung from pine boughs, six inches high, falling now and then in dull thuds around us. The roads were cleared by then, on the highways anyway, and we made our way south, back to the city, a day late for our return to school, where the daffodils and crocuses were still germinating, bursting from the softened earth.