Based on the stories told by my friends, getting caught in the act should have been a traumatic event. For me and Mom, it quickly became a go-to target of teasing whenever she wanted to give me a hard time.
“I’m going to my room to study,” I would say.
“Okay, honey. Try not to rip your dick off while you’re in there!” Mom would reply.
I never said it was highbrow stuff, but it made us laugh.
A couple of times, I even tried to level the playing field by catching Mom in the act, but she never once dropped her guard.
Years ago, after she’d recovered from a good chortle in response to seeing my preferred use of a tube sock, I had made a comment to the tune of, “What are you laughing at? You do it, too!” Quite the accusation to launch at one’s own mother, but I was not thinking straight.
“I sure do, honey.” She had said in a tone of voice that still rattled in my brain from time to time. “But when Mommy does it, it’s a lot more romantic than a tube sock.”
I had rolled my eyes and spoke without thinking. “Yeah, right. I would love to see that, Mom.”
“Oh, you–” She had been a deer in headlights, mulling over my request like she needed to process what she had heard. “You… want to watch me do that?”
It got awkward real fast, but Mom’s devilish grin on the way out told me that she hadn’t been too disturbed by it. Knowing her, she was thrilled to twist the knife and have a bit of fun at my expense. I, however, had beaten myself up about it for weeks.
Not my favourite memory to revisit.
The snow beat down on us on the way to the car, filling every nook and cranny of my jacket with bushels of cold, fluffy cotton. I could not see the van from the end of the walkway, and was forced to follow Mom’s faint silhouette through the blinding blizzard.
I trained my eyes on her gigantic bottom, watching her waddle to the car, while I trailed behind her like a lovesick puppy dog. My arms were full of knick-knacks to return to the city, and they were piled so high that I had to strain to see over the top.
“Just a few more steps, almost there,” Mom chirped. “Last time I’ll ask; are you sure you don’t want me to drive?”
“I’m sure, Mom.” I waited for her to crack the trunk, so I could dump the items inside.
In our ineptitude, we had decided to rent a large white van to pack stuff into to take home. When we got to the cottage, we found that there was not that much to transport, so the cost of the van was essentially a total loss.
As a joke, I suggested sleeping in the back to make the most of the rental, but Mom pointed out that we would surely freeze to death once the sun went down. “I don’t plan on using my son to stay warm; that’s why our ancestors invented fire,” she had quipped.
I didn’t think that was the precise reason our species had adopted fire, but I lacked the fortitude to argue. I was already shivering from the short walk from the cottage to the van and did not want to be outside for a second longer than necessary.
Malicious winds whipped against my nose and turned it a miserable shade of pink. Every snowflake was a little piece of sandpaper that chewed away at my skin, leaving it raw in its wake. They threatened to grate me down to nothing if I did not take shelter.
In my arrogance, I had neglected to bring a hat… or a scarf, or mittens, or… yeah, I was really unprepared. Thankfully, the sleeping bag I owned was rated for extremely cold temperatures, so at least my slumber had been comfortable all weekend. I had invested in it years ago at a huge discount and used it ever since.
The lining came with some kind of thermal reflectors that made the inside of the bag function like a greenhouse. It trapped heat, but I found that it worked poorly if I wore clothes inside. At home, I always slept with a t-shirt on, but in the bag I had to strip down to my underwear to make the most of its heat-recycling features.
The cottage had enough sheets and comforters for an army, but there was something uniquely homely about sleeping in the same sack I’d used for the better part of a decade, so I always brought it with me. Mom, on the other hand, didn’t even own a sleeping bag.
We were woefully unprepared for a blizzard of this magnitude, thanks to a pathetic reading of meteorological charts by our local weatherman. The longer we waited up north, the worse the drive home would be.
We would stay the night in Muskoka if we could, but anything that produced heat had been stripped down and shut off for the winter. We were left with the choice between a small shack that would soon be as violently cold as the air surrounding it, or a tedious drive home amidst a furious snow squall.
We chose the latter, unaware that in doing so, we were taking the first of many steps towards permanently changing our relationship.
Mom was already deep into her book by the time I slumped into the driver’s seat. I kicked off the snow that was caked to the bottoms of my boots and slammed the door behind me, sealing us away from the dreary outside world.
“Don’t move a muscle, I got it,” I taunted her. “You better be tipping me for this whole endeavor.”
Without looking up from her book, Mom said, “Don’t marry the first one who asks.”
“Wow. Thanks for that.” I rolled my eyes, as she chuckled sheepishly. “And they say waiters can’t survive on tips alone.”
“On my tips they could, I bet.” Mom closed her book and pushed her reading glasses down her nose. “I’m very smart, after all.”
“Listen to you, Nostra-Mom-Us.” It wasn’t a great pun, but I was proud of it. “Are you ready to go?”
“I’ve got everything I need right here.” Mom repeated her words of comfort from earlier, with eyes peering at me over the top of her page.
I hit the ignition and spun the tires in the snow for a second before they finally found traction. Neither of us said it, but we were both worried about the safety of the journey home.
I played some music from my phone, since the radios were all down from the weather. I was surprised to see Mom jamming along to a couple indie hits that weren’t usually her speed. The calming tones of Bon Iver serenaded us as we plowed through the blizzard. For a moment, I was convinced that the misery following us for mile after mile was nothing to fear. This self-assurance was, in part, what caused me to eventually drop my guard.
I didn’t notice the black ice in time, but that’s the problem with the treacherous stuff. It’s under your wheels before you see it coming, and before you can hit the brakes you’re already spinning out.
I hit the frozen patch with too much confidence, and the icy road was happy to humble me. As I made a slight turn around a large upcoming bend, we hit the frozen landmine and lost control immediately. I cursed like a sailor, and it was one of the few times in my life where Mom was too busy shrieking to call me out for it.
The ABS kicked in, but it wasn’t enough. The hulking vehicle spun in a full circle, sailing across the sea of ice and slush that coated the asphalt. With what little control I had, I tried to steer us towards the nearest streetlight a few dozen feet away.
Mom was clutching the “holy shit bad” above her window with white knuckles, watching in horror, as we flew towards the outer lane of the highway with the steel barrier in our sights.
It was one of those moments where you know you’re going to crash, so you start thinking about how bad it’s going to be before you even hit the wall. We weren’t likely to die, but I prayed we would walk away without any broken bones.
The impact itself only lasted a couple of seconds, but it dragged out like a dream. I must’ve hit my head when we crashed because I don’t actually remember colliding with the wall. I came to with my head on the steering wheel, a cold wind whipping against my face, and Mom in an abject panic.
“Oh my god, honey. I thought you were dead!” Mom cried, with her arms around my shoulders. She was still shaking me even though I was starting to wake up.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” I groaned. I took stock of the interior to assess the damage. The driver side window was smashed open, letting the frigid air invade the once warm cab, but the other windows were holding up with the exception of a few large, daunting cracks. The driver door was crushed against the barrier outside, so I could not get it open. “Are you all right, Mom?”
Mom was breathing heavily, but seemed physically okay. She did a quick pat down of her vital areas to confirm nothing was out of place. “I-I think so? Just a little bit shaken up, honey.”
We both turned our attention to the broken window. “What are we going to do about that?” She pointed a shivering finger to the shattered glass.
“I don’t know. We have to get a tow truck, but in this weather, I don’t know how quickly that would happen.” I sighed, feeling very defeated.
To my dismay, but not my surprise, a quick call to the tow company confirmed that they would not be able to reach us for several hours. When I told them I was in Muskoka, they all but laughed in my face.
Apparently, the farthest towns had been hit the worst, with anything north of Barrie trapped in a complete whiteout. It was late, we were far away, and they were understaffed. It was hopeless to think we would be rescued, and the operator hinted very strongly that we might have to sleep in the car overnight.
I hung up with a heavy heart weighing me down and tried to spin the dire situation into something positive for Mom’s sake. “Well, the good news is that we’re gonna have a ton of quality time together.”
Mom asked what I meant, and the horror that crept on her face told me what a poor job I did at softening the blow. “All night? What the heck are they talking about? It’s freezing, and our window is broken! They have to come!”
The howling wind outside intimidated us like a battle cry, its piercing chill infested every inch of the cabin. I cranked the key, but only succeeded in compounding my rising panic when the engine failed to start.
I’m no mechanic, but my guess was that the crash did something bad to the engine. Yes; that was my formal, non-professional opinion, and it stopped there.
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