Chapter 1
SEBASTIAN HARPER
It was the epitome of a white Christmas, and there was still five days until the national holiday.
The ground was covered in snow. The trees were bare and covered in the same white powder. The air was chilly and you couldn’t go outside without at least three layers of clothing. You could see your breath in front of you when you opened your mouth, and you could feel the smooth blanket of snow trudging under your feet as you walked.
Christmas was my favourite time of year, but I wasn’t in a very jolly mood this year.
The snowstorm had something to do with that.
News of the snowstorm had been everywhere all day yesterday, so Sarah and I, my wife of two beautiful years and two very difficult ones that made me want to scratch my eyes out, decided to stop by at a local inn last night. Before marriage, we had been going out for six years after meeting each other at a university party.
After a whole day on the road, immensely slowed down by the road, it felt good to spend the night in a warm, comfortable bed.
Every Christmas since even before we had been married, Sarah and I drove from Bournemouth where we lived up to Edinburgh where her family was. Both my parents had passed away before I had made it to twenty, and my older sister lived in the US with her husband and their three kids whom we saw every year for summer when they either visited or we did, so spending Christmas with Sarah’s family was the logical thing to do.
The drive up from Bournemouth to Edinburgh, had never taken us longer than twelve hours before, and that included stopping for bathroom breaks and two meals, but we had been considerably slowed down by the snow which had now turned into a snowstorm.
Currently, we were in an inn in a small countryside town somewhere between Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.
It looked like all of the visitors of this fine little inn had gathered around the receptionist’s desk. It appeared that we had all seen the news this morning of the snowstorm and looking out the window, it looked like we were snowed in.
“What do you mean we can’t leave?” A man from the crowd asked.
There were three people behind the counter. The owner of the inn, Mr Baxter of Baxter’s Inn, an elderly man who was dressed in an obnoxious red, white and green Christmas jumper riddled with reindeers and pom poms for their noses, stood in the centre of his two employees that usually manned the desk, and I couldn’t decide which of the three looked more scared.
The woman on his life didn’t look much older than I did when I first met Sarah. Her dirty blonde hair was pulled back in a messy bun, her skin was pale and there were dark circles under her eyes, like she hadn’t slept all night. She had no doubt signed up for more than she could chew with this part-time holiday job.
The boy on the other side of Mr Baxter looked to be a few years and probably worked here full-time. He was a little more professionally dressed than his boss, a suit, shirt, tie and dark jeans, but he looked just as tired as the woman.
They had no doubt been up all night, watching the snow fall and trap us in here.
“Sir.” Mr Baxter addressed the man. “I’m afraid that there’s nothing we can do. We’re snowed inn. The snowstorm is all over the news. Even if we weren’t snowed inn right now, there’s no way, in good consciousness, allow any of you to leave. It’s far too dangerous out there.”
“Have you called someone?” Another person asked. “Have you called for help?”
“I have, but no one can help us right now. It’s too dangerous while the snowstorm is still going off but as soon as it lifts, we’ll have help digging us out of here.”
“How long is that going to be?”
“I don’t know.” Mr Baxter shook his head. “But the news says that they expect the snowstorm will probably last a week.” Before anyone could burst into a bigger outrage, he was quick to continue. “It could be less than a week, but just know that as soon as the storm lifts and it’s safe out here, we’ll work as hard and fast as possible to get out of here.”
The crowd of people forced to stay in this quaint little in, Baxter’s Inn, broke out into yet another uproar.
I was just as annoyed as the next person about possibly being stuck here for a week, possibly even during Christmas and Boxing Day, but this wasn’t Mr Baxter or staff’s fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but the snows.
“Can you believe this?” A man groaned from beside me, annoyed. “We might have to spend Christmas here.”
“I know.” I agreed. “We’re halfway up to Edinburgh.”
“Really?” He asked, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “We’re on our way down from there.”
“What are the chances?” I chuckled and held out an outstretched hand. “I’m Sebastian, by the way. Sebastian Harper, and this is my wife, Sarah.”
“I’m Clyde Goodwin and this is my beautiful wife, Cindy.” Clyde grinned and moved aside to show off his wife. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”
I smiled politely at Cindy and watched as Sarah moved out from beside me to strike up a conversation with her.
“What’s up in Edinburgh?” Clyde asked. “Family?”
I nodded. “Sarah’s entire family lives up in Edinburgh. Has done for generations. I don’t have much family, so we spend every Christmas up there.”
“That’s nice.”
“What about you? Where are you and Cindy heading down to?”
“London.” Clyde told me. “Our entire family is also up in Edinburgh, but Cindy’s sister lives in London with her boyfriend and is currently very pregnant. If you ask me…” Clyde paused to make sure his wife wasn’t paying attention. “She looks like she’s going to pop any day now. Certainly, bigger than any pregnant lady I’ve ever seen.”
I threw my head back and laughed. Clyde was a funny one.
“She’s too pregnant to come up to us like she usually does with her boyfriend, so the entire family is driving down there to spend Christmas in London and be there when the baby eventually comes.” He went on to explain. “Cindy’s parents and her brother and his wife headed down there a few days ago, but I couldn’t get off work until today.”
“And now we’re all stuck here until after Christmas.” I chuckled, but the sound was frustrated. “We checked in here last night to get out of the snow.”
“We did the same.”
Before the conversation could continue, Mr Baxter, even in his old age, stood up on the counter of the front desk and shouted loudly to be heard over all the commotion.
“I know that this isn’t ideal. I know that no one wants to spend Christmas at an inn when you could be with your friends, families and loved ones. I promise you that as soon as we’ve been given all clear, as soon as its safe, we’ll all be able to get out of here but until then, we have to sit tight and just enjoy our time here. All our in-house facilities are still open like the gym, and the restaurant. We have enough food to last us a whole month, so we don’t have anything to worry about. Please, feel free to head into the restaurant for breakfast. I hear the Chef’s specialty this morning is chocolate chip pancakes.”
Despite Mr Baxter trying to assure us that everything would be okay, everyone was still grumbling and complaining as they headed over to the restaurant.
“I don’t want chocolate chip pancakes.” Sarah complained when she returned to my side.
“I’m sure they have other stuff on the menu for you.” I offered. “Come on, cheer up.”
Sarah’s face hardened as she glared at me.
“We wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for you.” She blamed me.
“How is this snowstorm my fault?”
“I’m not blaming the storm on you.” Sarah huffed and rolled her eyes. “If you didn’t make us stop here last night, we would have been up in Edinburgh right now with family. I’d much rather be snowed in with them than with a bunch of strangers.”
“I’d been driving for eight hours already, and you refuse to help out. It was snowing heavily, and we were both tired.” I reminded her, my jaw clenching at her harsh words. “And it’s a good thing that we stopped because there’s no guarantee that we would have made it all the way up there. For all we knew, stopping at this inn could have saved our lives.”
Sarah huffed and rolled her eyes before she stormed off to the restaurant, and all I could do was stand there frozen and stare at her retreating back incredulously.
What could have gone so wrong in our marriage that we thought it was okay to constantly talk to each other like that? What had I done to deserve such coldness and hatred from my wife?
She always blamed everything on me. Everything that was less than perfect in our marriage and in our lives was my fault. It was always my fault.
It was like in her eyes, I couldn’t do anything right.
Well, maybe after Christmas when I finally handed her the papers that I had been holding onto for more than six months now, I would finally do something right and we would finally be free of each other.
-
Layla Knight
10.07.2022
