One Snowy Night (Sweet Home, Alaska #1) - Patience Griffin Page 0,3

tell you how it is. How it was.” She started at the beginning of that awful night. “It was New Year’s Eve. I was at a party, celebrating with my friends.”

Hope left out the part about Donovan, how they’d fought that night. How her friends had encouraged her to dull her anger and disappointment with alcohol after he’d dropped the bomb that he was going to stay in Alaska for college, not go to Boston like they’d planned. Maturity and years of adulting had Hope seeing things differently. She understood now why he couldn’t turn down a full ride, when every penny counted at his dad’s house. Yes, Hope would leave out Donovan when telling Ella the story, but she wouldn’t shy away from her guilt in the tragedy. “I had a few sips of wine from one of those red Solo cups.”

“So what? A few sips won’t kill you, Mom,” her inebriated daughter countered. “I drank more than that tonight and I’m fine.”

“Yeah, sure, you’re fine. I should’ve videoed your swan dive through the front door a few minutes ago. Even a few sips of alcohol can impair your reflexes.” When you need them the most. It had been that way for Hope. She’d been lucky when they tested her blood alcohol level and it was under the legal limit.

Hope moved closer. “Scooch over so I can tell you the rest.” She sat beside Ella on her twin bed. “While I was still at the party, my mom called from the hospital, telling me to pick up Izzie from a sleepover, because she was complaining of a stomachache.”

“I bet you didn’t want to leave your friends,” Ella said.

Guilt covered Hope, wrapped around her like a familiar, well-worn robe, the tie in the middle squeezing her stomach until it hurt.

It was true. Her senior year, she’d begun resenting how much of her time wasn’t her own, how she had to drop everything to take care of Izzie. Izzie wanted her to play like they used to, but Hope only wanted to spend time alone with Donovan. After being best friends their whole lives, Donovan had finally stopped serial dating every girl at Sweet Home High and saw Hope as more than a pal. If Hope had known sooner that going out with Jesse Montana—tight end on the football team and good friend of Donovan’s—would wake Donovan up, Hope would have accepted Jesse’s offer a few years earlier. Apparently, Donovan didn’t have a clue that Hope had loved him since the first day he’d moved in next door.

“Mom? Mom! You’re doing what you always do when you talk about Aunt Izzie,” Ella said.

“What?”

“Zoning out. Get back to the story.”

It wasn’t just a story to Hope. She’d lived it. And now she had to make her daughter understand how life could go wrong in an instant. She dropped into lecture mode. “My mom always told me not to drink, to stay away from alcohol. Working the night shift in the ER, she saw the disastrous outcomes of drinking and driving—mangled bodies, loss of life.” It hurt to say those words, but Hope was doing penance. “At the time, I didn’t think it was a problem to have a few sips. I didn’t know I was going to be driving right after. But I was the one with the car keys and I shouldn’t have drunk at all.” Also, Hope never understood those who couldn’t have fun without knocking back a few. Donovan was one of them. She’d loved him, but she didn’t like that he drank so much, and so often.

“So . . . you picked up Aunt Izzie . . .” Ella had missed the point completely.

Hope sighed, feeling defeated, but plowed on anyway. “The point is, I should’ve listened to my mother and stayed away from alcohol.”

Ella rolled her eyes. “Enough with the sermon, already. What happened next?”

“I yelled at Izzie for being a nuisance. For faking being sick.” Hope had railed on her little sister, telling her that she’d ruined her night. Hope would never forget how Donovan had reached over and laid his hand on hers. Don’t take it out on Izzie. I know you’re mad at me.

“Then?”

This was the hardest part, recounting those horrible details. “There was a snowplow in the other lane.”

“Was it snowing hard?” her daughter asked.

“Not when I’d left home, but by the time I left the party, visibility was horrible, nearly a whiteout.” Donovan had offered to drive, but Hope wouldn’t let him.