Unplugged

We drove up the snowy, winding road towards the cozy A-frame cabin. Wind and ice pummeled our car. Giant snowflakes fell from the sky and crashed against the windshield. The meteorologists had been right this time. Blizzard-like conditions blanketed the entire state, and it looked as if everyone else had heeded the travel ban.

While we crept along the dark and deserted two-lane parkway, our headlights illuminated the flakes as they swirled in front of our eyes, drawing my attention left…then right…up…then down.

“Can you even see the yellow lines?” I said with a tremor in my voice. “Maybe you should slow down.”

My husband Sam reached across the center console and grabbed my hand, interlacing his fingers with mine. “Don't worry. I can see just fine.”

But the flurries dizzied me as if I was freefalling inside a shaken snow globe. Gently, I guided Sam’s hand back to the steering wheel where it belonged, resisting the urge to remind him about keeping two hands on the wheel.

Suddenly, a jolt to the small of my back made me jump. I snapped my head around to glare at my son Jason behind me.

“How many times do I have to ask you to stop kicking my seat?”

Jason didn’t look up. A pair of wireless headphones covered his ears. He stared like a zombie at the tablet in his lap.

Turning my attention to his younger sister beside him, I said, “Sarah, can you get your brother’s attention?”

Sarah’s pointer finger stopped scrolling along her cell phone screen. A smile spread across her face as she elbowed Jason in the side. “Mom’s talking to you, dipshit!”

“Hey! Cut it out!” Jason pushed his sister sideways into the door.

“Ouch!” she screamed. The shrill of her voice echoed inside the car. “Mom! Dad! He hit me!”

“Stop!” I said through clenched teeth. “I’ve had enough of the fighting. It’s going to be a long weekend if you two can’t get along.”

I swallowed the giant lump in my throat. Maybe this had been a bad idea. All I’d wanted for my birthday was a peaceful weekend getaway. Before Sam leaves for college in the fall. No friends. No housework. No outside commitments. Just the four us—like it used to be when the kids were little and taking a vacation together was something they looked forward to.

I sucked in a breath and twisted back around to stare straight ahead, trying to remain perfectly still. The muscles in my body were so tense they could snap. Why did it feel so hot in here? I checked the inside temperature gauge and dialed it down. “Maybe we should pull over, Sam.”

“We’re almost there.” He wagged his index finger in front of the rearview mirror, keeping his eyes pointed forward. “Kids, listen to your mother. The roads are slick. I need everyone to be quiet.”

A gust of wind thrust us into the opposite lane. Sam turned the hazard lights on and slowed to less than fifteen miles an hour. I closed my eyes and tried to meditate, picturing myself on a white-sand beach with the hot sun on my face and crystal blue water around my ankles. Maybe we should have waited to take a trip during the warm weather so the kids would have more to do. Too late now.

I returned to my daydream to distract myself from the nausea churning in my gut until Sam called out. “Wow! Look at that!”

I opened my eyes again and blinked. The storm was letting up and a silhouette of the A-frame we’d booked online emerged against the wintery landscape. Soft lights had been strung along the steep-sloping roofline, greeting us with a warm welcome and illuminating the rest of our journey up the hill.

“Kids, look!” I sang.

“Hmm,” Sarah quipped in synch with a soft grunt from Jason. Neither one of them flinched, still hypnotized by their devices.

The long driveway leading to the cabin’s massive front porch was covered in tracks, suggesting that it had been plowed recently. A shovel and a bucket of bright blue rock salt sat at the bottom of the stairs. Someone had cleared the steps, leaving a pair of deep footprints along the snow-covered path.

Sam got out of the car. “Walk carefully,” he said. “It might be slippery out here.”

I opened the car door slowly, holding it tight as a strong wind flew in. Jason and Sarah still hadn’t moved. I was about to lose my patience. “Put those damn things down,” I snapped.

Sarah eyeballed me from the backseat. “I’m not getting any cell service,” she moaned as if someone had chewed off her right arm.

“Me neither,” Jason added. “We better have WiFi at this place!”

Quickly, I leaped from the car and hurried into the cabin, ignoring Sam’s earlier warning and almost faceplanting on my way up the steps. It wasn’t until I was safe and warm inside that I realized I’d forgotten to help Sam with our luggage. He gave me a smirk after entering behind me with his arms full of duffel bags.

“Sorry,” I said. “I needed to get away from the kids before saying something I’ll regret. They’re pissing me off. I don’t think they looked out the window once during the entire ride. Too busy texting their friends and burying their noses in social media. Remind me why we thought bringing them here was a good idea.”

Sam plopped the bags down on the oversized braided rug that filled the foyer. “Come here.” He extended his arms wide and invited me in for a hug. I leaned forward and pressed my cheek against his chest. The warmth of his embrace soothed me, settling my nerves. Whispering in my ear, he said, “Relax. I want this birthday to be special. Look around. Isn’t this place great?”

I’d been so eager to vent about the kids that I hadn’t noticed anything about our accommodations. When I pulled away from Sam’s embrace to take it in, my jaw dropped at the magnificence surrounding me. Although the cabin was small, every square inch of the open floor plan was perfectly appointed.

A large stone fireplace centered the common area, complete with an old-fashioned iron toolset and a tall oval basket chockful of firewood ready to burn. A fur rug sat in front of the hearth, flanked by two overstuffed sofas bearing fuzzy pillows and plush throw blankets. A corner bookshelf contained decks of playing cards, jigsaw puzzles, and a stack of board games, including our family favorites—Monopoly, Scrabble, and Trivial Pursuit. Everything about the place dared me not to unwind.

I took a deep breath and inhaled the sweet and woody smell of cinnamon that filled the air. It seemed to grow stronger when I noticed the bowl of scented pinecones arranged carefully on the coffee table alongside a pile of well-worn paperbacks and a vanilla candle.

Tempted to sink into one of the sofas, I walked toward the kitchen instead. The knotty pine cabinets were stocked with dishes and glassware, pots and pans, and endless cooking gadgets. If we got snowed in, we could at least teach ourselves how to become gourmet chefs, provided we brought the right food.

“Oh shoot! The cooler,” I quipped. “Did we leave that in the trunk?”

Sam nodded. “Let the kids bring it in.”

My shoulders stiffened at the mention of our children. What would they think of this place? I suddenly realized what was missing from the coffee table—a remote control. I scanned the room and concluded that there was no television either. A brief visit to the bedrooms at the back of the cabin confirmed that there was no TV anywhere. That wouldn’t go over well with Jason and Sarah. At least they had their devices. Or did they?

I walked back to the kitchen to study the index card taped to the front of the refrigerator. It held the WiFi password, along with a note that read, “Cell service and WiFi are sketchy in this neck of the woods. If the password doesn’t work, keep trying. It cuts back in eventually. Our apologies for any inconvenience this might cause.”

Ugh. Teenagers cut off from the outside world could be dangerously cranky. The winter storm offered us a natural obstacle to our typically hectic lifestyle. Perhaps I should have been satisfied hunkering down at home for my birthday instead of insisting on an actual getaway. How was I going to break the news about the WiFi to Jason and Sarah? Even worse, what would they do to entertain themselves?

It didn’t take long for the kids to figure things out on their own. After several expletives and a few long periods of silence, they retreated to their separate bedrooms. The click of their doors locking echoed throughout the cabin, bringing a pool of tears to my eyes. I looked over at Sam who was on his knees in front of the fireplace, and I started to cry.

“Nope!” He sprung to his feet and rushed to comfort me. “No crying on your birthday.”

“But this is a disaster,” I sobbed. “The kids are going to hide in their rooms all night and hate us for bringing them here.”

“Not on my watch.” Sam smiled. “Let me get a fire started. You go warm up that chili we brought. We'll give them some time. Besides, things could always be worse, even if we end up sitting alone together on that comfy couch all night.”

Sam was right. I kissed him on the cheek and silently vowed to lower my expectations and focus on the positive. We’d come a long way. I wasn’t about to let a couple of egocentric teenagers ruin the trip. Grabbing my phone, I selected my favorite country music soundtrack, turned it up full blast, and tapped my feet to the beat.

The eventual slam of the back door vibrated the floor beneath me and made my body jerk. Fighting against the temptation to see what was happening, I drew in another deep cleansing breath and pulled a set of beautifully handcrafted plates from the cupboard. Let them come to me, I thought.

But after the kitchen table was set and the chili steaming hot, I grew impatient, calling out to Sam who was poking at the roaring fire. “Can you get the kids?”

Seconds later, Sam was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “You sure you want to call them in now?”

I tilted my head and scowled. “Yes. I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”

Sam walked toward me with a mysterious expression on his face—his eyebrows arched high, and his lips pursed in a slight grin. He grabbed my hand and led me past the kids’ bedrooms. I peered in through their open doors, pausing to wonder why both rooms were empty, except for their luggage and the devices that had been tossed on their beds.

Surprisingly, the Scrabble board had been set up on a small table in Jason’s room and it appeared as if a game was already in progress. An image of him and his sister playing together as toddlers flashed through my mind and brushed across my heart.

“Where are they?” I asked.

Sam drew a finger to his lips. “Shh. Follow me.”

We walked a few more steps toward the back door. Sam pressed his face up against the glass and motioned for me to do the same. As I looked out into the backyard, goosebumps broke out on my arms. But I wasn’t cold. My insides burned with a warmth that could rival any fire in the fireplace.

The snow had stopped. The clouds had cleared. Against the blackness of the night sky, a bright white moon shined down on Jason and Sarah. They were building a snowman, in between throwing snowballs at each other and laughing hysterically at the inaccuracy of their aim.

A tear slid down my cheek as I snuggled up against Sam. We watched for almost an hour without speaking.

Finally, I said, “They must be getting cold. Think we should call them in?”

“Not yet. I’m trying to figure out what their snowman is holding in his hands.”

I pressed my face further into the glass and squinted to see what Sam was talking about. My heart burst with joy when it came into focus. The kids had formed a block of snow into a cake, using their gloves to simulate candles and pieces of the blue rock salt to spell out the words “HAPPY BIRTHDAY.”

And just like that, any doubts I’d had about our weekend getaway melted away.