Christmas at the Cabin

We drove up the snowy, winding road towards the cozy A-frame cabin. The A-frame was much bigger than I’d expected, tucked back from the road with twinkling lights beckoning us towards it through the massive windows. I can’t help but feel small and watched as we park. The driveway is filled with shiny, new looking cars that make my 2000 Jeep look particularly shabby in comparison. Jay gets out as soon as I put the car in park, halfway to the back before I can even comprehend his door has closed.

“Babe”— He bangs lightly against the trunk— “Hanna, can you unlock the trunk? It’s freezing.”

His voice is a little distorted considering the door between us. I hit the unlock button on my key fob and fumble for the handle in my own door. As I stumble out of the car, gasping around the winter air, Jay is pulling out all our luggage. I make it to the back, shaking out my stiff and oddly shaky limbs, and am able to sling my crafting bag over one shoulder before Jay sets it on the ground.

“You ready?” Jay murmurs and hands me my hard-case luggage.

“Ready as I can be, I guess.” I say around the nervous smile pulling my lips tight across my teeth.

“C’mon, they love you babe. I promise,” His whisper ruffles the fly away curls that have peaked out from my beanie.

He rubs my back and turns me towards the front door before pulling his back pack from the back. The trunk closes with a sharp crack that seems to echo in the few steps between the car and the stone steps. The size of the cabin doesn’t feel any less intimidating as we walk up the steps. I have to remember to breathe when we pause to knock. Jay told me, on the way up, that he usually was the first one up here. This is the first year he’ll have to knock on the imposingly beautiful carved door of his family’s A-frame.

The creaking of it opening would worry me further, like a sound clip taken from the horror film Jay’s roommate likes, except for the warmth seeping out with every inch opened. The light that spilled out onto the porch from inside is a comforting deep yellow. Like a controlled flame licking out towards our legs. The woman standing in the doorway isn’t unfamiliar to me. Jay’s mother was the first person from his family I met after his sister had introduced us.

“Hey there, sweetie!” Jay’s mother has a voice like summer, warm and joyous and full of life.

“Hi again, ma’am.” I give an odd little wave that I can’t stop, but wish I had once I’d done it.

“Oh none of the ‘ma’am’ nonsense, Hanna. I’ve told you to call me Maria already, haven’t I?” Maria’s gentle admonishment makes me flush, but helps me feel a little better nonetheless.

She reaches out to take my crafting bag and squeezes her sons shoulder on her way. As I go to hand it over, Maria freezes.

“Oh!” She exclaims, taking my hand and running a finger over my new ring.

“Ah yeah mom—,” Jay starts only to be cut off by his mother putting her hand up.

“I’m guessing this is why the two of you are late, hmm.” Her voice is still that magically, summery kind.

Despite her kind voice and the way she still looks at the ring with a sort of detached wistfulness, I can’t help but bite my lip nervously. The questions that had nearly spun me out as we came up the mountain bubble up until they sit right under the surface. Will his family approve? Will his mom still like me? Will my parents be upset that we told Jays first? Will everything still be ok once everyone knows? All of them sit heavy in my chest like a rock.

“I guess I should start calling you my daughter then, don’t you think sweetheart?” She looks up at me, eyes twinkling with a little of that joy I have always seen in her and a light sheen of tears.

Maria pulls me into a back-cracking hug and all the way into the A-frame. Jay has to grab my luggage when it falls out of my other hand, commandeered by one of Jay’s Aunts. I don’t even get the chance to glance back and thank him because his family swarms the front room that Maria has walked me into. From this side of the glass it feels so much more like the world is so far from here. Like the glass has placed us into our own personal snow globe. Like there’s nothing to worry about.

“It’s about time your boy got married, Maria.” A gruff woman who had simply been introduced to me as ‘Mama Rose’ says.

“Oh hush now, Mama Rose. He was taking his time, had to make sure he snagged the right girl. Eh, Jay?” His sister, Sof, calls from where she’d thrown her arm over my shoulders. “Figures it’d be the only chick I introduced you to, hah!”

“Sure, Sof!” Jay responds from behind the wall of his family that has sprung up around us.

As I’m passed from family member to family member, losing my coat and hat and scarf as I’m dragged further into the home, my worries start to melt away. With each kiss to my cheek, each breath-taking hug, each teary eye over the new-to-me ring wove me into the fabric of Jay’s family. The frozen weight of my worries, of not knowing how the family would react or how my parents would feel, they feel like nothing in this warm oasis of a house. The smells of rose water and warmed sugar and spices leave me hungry to cook with Maria and Jay and all the cooks of this community in the kitchen. When Sof scoffs at my hat head and sweeps my hair into the same wild bun as all the women in the room around me I can’t help but feel even more settled than I had when Jay first spun the glittering heirloom onto my finger.

***

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