Tic-Tac-Mistletoe - N.R. Walker Page 0,2

road. I even pulled the car over every few blocks and double-checked on the map that I was on the right road.

Because, you see, I’ve never driven in sleety, slushy snow before. In actual crazy-fact, I’d never even seen snow before.

Yep, you read that right. Never seen snow before. Never been in snow before, and certainly never driven a car in it. So why on earth did I think my first time should be when I was jet-lagged and driving on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the street?

Because I was a grown-ass man and people did this all the time. I was unshittifying my life, taking a leap of faith, starting anew. I had to stand on my own two feet. If my little sister could move across to the other side of the planet and start a new life, then so could I, dammit. I wanted to prove to her—and to myself—that I could be a grown-up.

And driving in Missoula wasn’t so bad. There were street signs and freeway signs, and once I was on the Interstate, I was feeling pretty good. It was now actually snowing. White flaky stuff was falling from the sky, not that I had any time to enjoy it. I just concentrated on the red brake lights in front of me and the road signs that confirmed I was heading in the right direction.

But then the signs got fewer and farther between with every kilometre I drove. The line of traffic thinned out to just a few cars, yet the snow was now coming down pretty hard and the only lines on the road I could see were from the tyres of the cars ahead of me.

But I had the map all planned out. All I had to do was stay on the Interstate, get to St. Regis and turn onto Montana Sky Highway. Stay on that until I pass the Welcome to Idaho signs and then take a left on Beaver Creek Road. Take that for another twenty-five miles until I drove right into Mossley, Idaho.

Easy, right?

I could do this.

Yeah, right. Maybe I could do this if ridiculous amounts of white stuff wasn’t falling from the sky.

Driving was slow and slippery, the wind making it hard to see the road at times, and drifts of snow crawled onto the highway in some places. I stopped for fuel and the nice guy at the petrol station . . . err, gas station, reassured me I was headed in the right direction. “Just keep going on this road a ways, and you’ll see a sign that says Welcome to Idaho. You can’t miss it.”

I had no idea how far ‘a ways’ was in metric, but at least I was going in the right direction.

“Still no phone service,” I said to him, showing him my phone as if that proved anything.

“Lines are down too,” he replied. “Can’t even use the landlines.”

Well, that’s just awesome.

“Haven’t seen snow like this since ’72,” he went on.

Because, of course he hadn’t.

The blizzard of the freaking century was the day I turned up and needed to drive in it.

So fucking typical.

I thanked him and wished him a Merry Christmas, then slide-walk-danced back to the car. And from that twenty-metre walk, I still had to brush snow out of my hair and try not to freeze to death.

I double-checked the map—which was ridiculously difficult to fold, mind you. It really is no wonder they went out of fashion. It was like trying to fold a fitted sheet, all while sitting behind the wheel of a car, with frozen fingers.

But, with a renewed confidence that I was actually doing this and that I would see my sister soon, I pulled back out into traffic, and thankfully there was a car in front of me I could follow. But soon enough, they turned off and I was on my own.

Sure, I passed an occasional vehicle going in the other direction, so I wasn’t the only one stupid enough to drive in this. But the snow came down heavier now, and driving was slow and difficult. I almost missed the sign for Montana Sky Highway and had to pull a hard right to take the turn. The tyres slid and I almost over-corrected, and thank God there was no one behind me. But my heart was now beating triple time and my hands were shaking. I probably would have hyperventilated if I wasn’t concentrating so hard on keeping the