Chapter 10 - The First Snow
December arrived in Virginia with a sudden, heavy blanket of white that muffled the highways and turned the Blue Ridge Mountains into jagged cardboard cutouts against a slate-gray sky.
I was back in Lynchburg, sitting at the heavy oak desk in my father’s old study. The fire in the stone hearth crackled and popped, throwing a warm, dancing amber light across the leather-bound ledgers and the rows of law books Dana had sent me to help manage the rental portfolio.
My phone rang—a soft, pleasant chime.
It was Denise, the nurse from Room 412.
“Helen? Just checking in on you,” Denise said warmly over the line. “The holiday shift in neuro is always a bit chaotic, and I found myself thinking about our favorite pre-op patient from October.”
“I’m doing wonderfully, Denise,” I smiled, leaning back in my father’s leather chair. “The hair is growing back in curls, the headaches are gone, and I’m officially a landlord with a very strict tenant policy.”
“I love to hear it. Did that ex-husband of yours ever figure out how to use a debit card without your permission?”
“Last I heard, he’s working out of a spare desk in his brother’s cabinet shop in Richmond,” I said, watching a spark jump from the fireplace and die harmlessly against the hearth. “Paige moved back with her parents in Fredericksburg, and the baby is learning how to walk.”
“And you?”
“I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
After we hung up, I walked over to the front window. The snow was falling faster now, settling in thick, pristine drifts across the porch railing and the old stone walkway.
Kate’s car pulled up the driveway, her tires crunching softly against the fresh powder. She got out wearing a bright red wool coat, her arms loaded down with bags of groceries and a suspiciously large box of bakery pastries.
I opened the front door before she could even reach the porch, the warm air of the house rushing out to meet the winter cold.
“Did you bring the cinnamon rolls?” I asked.
“If I didn’t, you would have had to evict me,” Kate laughed, stomping the snow off her boots and stepping into the hallway.
She dropped the bags on the mahogany table—right where our father used to drop his keys—and turned to me with a wide, glowing grin.
“Merry unofficial independence day, Helen.”
May you like
“Merry independence day, Kate.”
We walked into the kitchen together, turning on the kettle as the snow fell silently outside, burying the past beneath a clean, white sheet of absolute beginning.
