Page 39 of Single Dad's Christmas Cookie

“The Weather Service announced that we’re to expect a bit of a snowstorm.”

“What qualifies as a snowstorm around here?” As far as I was concerned, there was already too much snow on the roads for me to be comfortable driving. Any more and I might have a full-blown panic attack.

The clerk laughed at me.

“No, seriously. I’m not from here.”

“It’ll take quite a bit of snow before any of the roads shut down, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Bryan said as he carried a handful of tags over.

“More than what’s out there right now?” I pointed behind me, indicating the outside. “Because driving in that felt like a lot of snow to me.”

“That was barely a dusting.” His brows pulled together in the middle, making that little double crease right above his nose.

“That’s a lot more than I’ve ever driven in. I’m from the South. If we get more than a couple of inches, everything is shut down. And you’re telling me to expect”— I looked at the sales clerk again— “how much snow?”

She shrugged. “They said six to eight inches, maybe.”

Six to eight inches. That was more snow than I could comprehend. “I need to go to the store before it hits. I need to make sure we don’t run out of anything.”

“Relax, Nova,” Bryan said. “Think of it like a rainstorm. You don’t want to be out in the middle of it, but once it’s over, everything’s fine.”

“Except there’s snow on the ground.” I pointed out. “When it rains, it just gets wet. As much fun as it is to watch all of this” —I circled my hand in the air, indicating the fun chaos that Bryan had created by purchasing all of the donations on the Angel Tree— “I really should go to the store before they run out of stuff.”

“The grocery store isn’t going to run out of supplies, Nova,” he said.

“Well, I don’t know that. Where I come from, if there is a storm coming, bread and toilet paper disappear from the stores. So, I need to go to the grocery store. I’ll see you back at the house.”

“And you’ll see that this incoming snowstorm is nothing to worry about,” Bryan said.

Nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about. It was snowing. I liked snow just fine, except for when I had to drive on it. I didn’t know if my little car could handle much more than what was already on the roads.

When I got to the grocery store, I expected not to find any parking spaces and for everyone to be in a frenzy. The grocery store was practically empty. Everybody was at the mall stores buying Christmas presents.

The shelves were full, and there was plenty of bread, toilet paper, and even milk. Not that those were the things I needed from my shopping list. Those were the things that stuck in my head that I had to buy, as if for some reason, anytime there was a snowstorm, everybody had to make French toast or maybe bread pudding.

Bread pudding. That would be a wonderful thing to make for Christmas Eve. I knew Bryan was expecting something much more elegant and sophisticated than what I had been preparing for their regular dinners.

Bread pudding would be a perfect addition to the menu I was planning for the big meal. I added milk, cream, eggs, and sweet Hawaiian style bread to my shopping cart, none of which had been on my original shopping list.

I completed my errand and finished adding the rest of the items from my shopping list into my cart. After I purchased everything and headed out to the car, I noticed a lot more snow was falling. The sky was completely overcast with heavy, dark clouds. It definitely looked like storm weather. The wind howled and cut through my coat as if I hadn’t bothered to wear one.

Snow compacted into ice under my boots as I pushed the grocery cart full of bags out into the parking lot. I didn’t like how much snow was on the ground. It was going to be a white-knuckle drive all the way back to the house.

It was as if the weather knew I was nervous. As I loaded the groceries into the back of my car, it started snowing even harder.

“Oh, give me a break,” I yelled up at the sky. I returned my cart to the corral and climbed in the car.

At least the heater worked. I didn’t drive fast, and everything seemed to be fine. But I was in the parking lot.

The main road itself was clear. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. There was enough traffic to keep the surface clear. I was being nervous for no good reason.

“It’s just a little snow, Nova. You can do this,” I talked myself through turning out of the parking lot.

When I turned off the main road, the snow accumulation became thick and wet, like a slushie from a gas station convenience store. And on top of that wet, icy snow, a thick layer of white began to cover it.

The surface of the road was smooth and domed. The snow was a thick blanket that crunched under my car’s tires, and I couldn’t see where the edge of the road was.

I drove slowly, too slowly for the locals. A big pickup truck came up behind me quickly. He blasted his horn and drove around me, splattering my windshield with dirty, thick, frozen slush. If I had been driving well below the speed limit before, now I was practically creeping along.

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