This is a new story called “Trapped in the snow” let’s begin….. It was just before the holidays began. I’d come home from school for a two week visit, it had been several months since I had and was looking forward to it. Both of my older sisters would be there as well, neither of which I had seen in a couple of years now.
Sophia lived on the east coast where she worked for a large publishing firm. Never married, she preferred the carefree lifestyle and independence she enjoyed working and living there. She’d always been that way though, and I often wondered if she ever would get married.
There were four years between each of us, for whatever reason mom and dad had purposely spaced things out. Unfortunately because of it, I’d never gotten very close to my eldest sister Collette. She almost felt more like a cousin or an aunt even rather than my sister,
and growing up we’d had very little to do with one another. Unlike Sophia, she had gotten married straight out of high school, married to an idiot as I thought of him anyway, which proved itself out as her marriage had lasted only three years. Luckily they hadn’t had any children, though we later found out…she couldn’t.
Now Collette worked on the West coast at one of those wild-life preserves, something she enjoyed doing, but which kept her busy and usually unable to spend a lot of time away from her job, let alone coming home for a visit. The fact that both of them would in fact be coming home this year was cause for celebration.
It’s funny how people can change so drastically in such a short period of time too. Something I noticed after coming home, walking into the family room and seeing them both again after such a long period of time.
I was only ten when Collette got married and moved out. Only seeing her once or twice a year after that, if that…what I remembered the most about her was her being very reserved, quiet and plain looking. Not that she wasn’t attractive, she was, but Collette never dressed provocatively, or in such a way that would show off much of her magnificent body. Large breasted just as mom and Sophia was, a trait that obviously ran in the family,
I had never even seen her naked, not once, unlike my other sister who I’d accidentally, (though sometimes purposely) had walked in on while she lived there.
When I greeted her again now for the first time in over two years, it was like meeting a stranger for the first time. Her hair was much longer now, wearing it in a sexy little ponytail, streaked with highlights of blonde running through it, she looked totally different from how I’d ever seen her before. The fact she was also wearing makeup, though it certainly wasn’t overdone was another nice addition. Her “plain Jane” look was long gone. Now she looked every bit the natural beauty I’d always guessed her to be.
Sophia on the other hand had always been the wild one, or wilder than Collette had been anyway. More like me, she was outgoing, had a bubbly personality and tended to push the envelope when growing up, always wearing clothes, or trying to at least, that would have mom and dad sending her back to her room to change. I once asked her why she did that, if she knew mom and dad weren’t going to allow her to go out in some of the things she wore, “Why did she keep trying to wear them and aggravating them so much?”
She had laughed at that, sharing with me her secret, “Because I know they’re not going to let me go out wearing what I am, and so when I change into something else not quite as revealing, they see it as a compromise, and usually allow me to wear that. Which is what I wanted to wear in the first place!” she said, grinning at me.
Now seeing Sophia again, it was almost as though the two of them had changed roles if not personalities. Sophia had cut her long blonde hair short, it was still sassy looking, but “easier to care for,” as she put it. Even coming home for a visit on holiday, she was still dressed demurely; unlike I recalled seeing her in the past. She wore a business-like white blouse, a skirt that fell all the way to the knee, clothing she wouldn’t have been caught dead in just a few years ago.
After exchanging hugs and kisses all around, we settled down in front of a nice warm fire that dad had started. We sat sipping a nice Port that dad had purchased just for the occasion while mom tended to the dinner she was preparing for our first evening home together after so many years.
As the evening wore on, so did the raging storm outside begin to escalate. The weather reports earlier had indicated it was going to be a bad one, and it was. It’s not often you get thunder and lightning with a snowstorm, but we were getting that in spades. Twice now the lights had flickered nearly going off, an indication we were in for a bad one before the night was over.
After dinner was over and everything was cleaned up and put away, dad worriedly suggested we stack plenty of wood by the fire in the event we needed it for heat. In addition to that, mom gathered up a bunch of candles and a couple of flashlights along with some extra blankets in the event we did lose power. With the flashlights at least,
we could find our way to the bathroom upstairs, or downstairs where our old bedrooms were, though I was the only one who could still claim to have one. The “girls” room as we’d once called it, had long since been turned into more of a study where dad very often worked or puttered around these days.
It was because of that, that the sleeping arrangements had quite naturally been modified in order to accommodate my sisters. Still having my own bed downstairs in the basement, the girls were forced to share the hideaway bed in the living room, though they would have the fire to keep them both warm during the night.
As it was getting late, mom and dad eventually said their goodnights and headed upstairs off to bed. As the three of us were wont to do however, we decided to stay up, catching up, and simply enjoying the eerie beauty of the storm as it continued to intensify. The thunder and lightning was becoming more and more frequent, and it was evident it was going to get worse before it got better.
“Maybe we’d better get ready for bed while we still have light to see by,” Collette had suggested. “Max? Can we use your bedroom to change in at least?” We’d already taken most of their luggage downstairs into my room anyway, so I’d pretty much figured out the three of us would be sharing it in a way. Which is when I also remembered dad had taken the door off, as he’d just recently repainted my bedroom. The door was still sitting off the hinges in the hallway, and hadn’t been put back on yet, which I then informed them about.
“While you two get ready for bed, I’ll stack a bit more wood by the fire for you in case you get cold later on,” I suggested.
“Thanks!” Collette told me, reaching over to ruffle my hair, which I’d allowed to grow a bit longer than I’d normally worn it in the past too. Even as she did that, I felt like the same young kid again I’d always felt whenever I was around my eldest sister. I’d filled out however, bulking up considerably since the last time she’d seen me. Played a lot of tennis, worked out, and stayed in pretty good shape, something that didn’t go unnoticed either as she looked at me. It was an odd look, something I hadn’t seen come from her before as she seemed to realize I wasn’t that same ungainly kid I’d once been.
“How about you pour us a bit more of that Port too?” she then asked, “Unless you’re ready to go to bed,” she asked me.
“Not tired yet,” I told them both. “Unless you two are. I’d sort of like to stay up and keep an eye on the storm,” I freely admitted. Down stairs in my room with no windows I wouldn’t be able to see it, and lightning had always fascinated me growing up, especially when it was also snowing. And at the moment, it had turned into a virtual blizzard outside.
The snow was coming down so fast it had created a near total whiteout, and with the addition of the lightning periodically lighting things up, it had given it a surrealistic beauty. Though neither one of my sisters saw it that way. Unlike me, they’d always been afraid of it, and by the looks on their respective faces, that hadn’t changed.
“I wish it would stop,” Sophia said worriedly.
“Sorry sis, by the looks of things, I’d say we’re in for a long night!” I informed her as I began stacking a bit more wood by the fire. “But, I’ll stay up with you two for a while and make sure you’re ok,” I told them both. With that, they headed downstairs to change while I stoked the fire, and poured us into each other’s Port.
Sure enough, they’d only been downstairs less than a minute when an enormous clap of thunder and almost simultaneous lightning hit pretty closely nearby. The lights didn’t even flicker, they just went out. Had it not been for the fire in the room, I wouldn’t have been able to see anything. Seconds later, the sound of my sister’s calling up to me from the darkness of the basement alerted me to the fact they couldn’t see at all.