Page 5 of Christmas at the Ranch

Two

I choose flight. With a modicum of fight, since navigating Toronto’s perpetual gridlock is always a battle.

I inch toward the Gardiner Expressway and persevere until I’m sailing down the Don Valley Parkway in my Prius.

Past the icy river and the valley filled with the leaf-bare, snow-dressed trees.

Past happy kids sledding down the hill beside Riverdale Farm, which gives me a twinge to see.

I don’t have any core memories like that and couldn’t imagine either of my parents pushing a child version of me down a toboggan hill, ever.

Back when my dad and I used to be close—which now feels like a different lifetime—his idea of bonding was taking me to the Toronto Stock Exchange to hear them ring the opening bell, then out for what he called a power breakfast. I asked him once if we could go to the library instead and he told me we were the sort of people to donate money to the library, not actually use it.

But I loved the library and went on my own whenever I could, taking the subway two stops from our neighborhood in Rosedale to roam the stacks of the reference library, to drink coffee in the café and dream of one day writing for the newspapers my father spread on his desk every morning, keeping the business sections and leaving the rest for me.

My phone rings. It’s Lani.

“Emory! I’ve been so worried!”

“Lani, I have to tell you something…” My voice wobbles and I grip the steering wheel tight.

But I can tell my best friend anything. Ever since Lani and I met in our first year at Concordia in Montreal, at a Halloween party where we were both dressed up as Encyclopaedia Britannica volumes in protest of them going out of print that year, we’ve been soulmates.

I was still heartbroken over Tate, my first boyfriend, when I met her, and she helped me through it.

But this is worse. This isn’t a teenage heartbreak I should have gotten over well before I did. It’s my family. My culpability.

“I always knew something was going on with my dad’s company,” I say. “Right from the first moments he and Reuben went into business together. If I had told someone—”

“Oh, Em. Don’t do this to yourself.”

“He wanted me to work with him at the company, and I refused. I never would have let this happen.”

“No. Just because your parents have never made it feel safe to be who you are doesn’t mean who you are isn’t great.

You were supposed to abandon your dreams just to make your dad happy?

Now, where are you? Do you want to come here?

” A baby’s wail in the background punctuates her words.

“Hang on, let me just get this one on the boob and”—the cries reach a desperate pitch, then stop suddenly, making me realize my best friend has way too much on her plate with twin newborns to be dealing with my stuff.

“Which one is that?” I ask with a smile.

“Cece.”

“And Matt is on shift?” Her husband is a pediatric cardiologist who works long, often erratic hours.

“Yes, but my mom and her sisters are getting here tomorrow—at which point I’ll be lucky if I even get to hold the twins for the foreseeable future. It’s you I’m worried about. Come here. Stay with me. Let us take care of you, too.”

I can’t help but feel a tug of longing at the idea of Lani’s mom, Isa, and her many aunties fussing over me during the holidays, feeding me Filipino food until I want to burst.

“It’s you and the twins they should be doting on,” I say. “And besides, I need to keep driving north.”

When I say these words, they make perfect sense.

“Driving north ? Where are you?”

I look at the next highway sign. “In Orillia.”

“Why?”

“I needed to get out of the city.”

“You should probably stop soon, Em,” she says gently. “There’s a blizzard coming.” I hear a second baby wailing in the background. “Hang on, just let me get these two settled and you’ll have my full attention again.”

“You go take care of them. I’ll turn around soon. I’ll call you in the morning.”

“And text me later so I know you’re okay?”

“Promise.”

I hang up and keep going. Soon, the winter scenery I’m passing makes me feel like I’m driving through Narnia.

Thick white snow covers the tall coniferous trees lining the highway, so they all appear to be wearing regal white robes.

The walls of blasted granite that signal the official entrance to Ontario’s northern cottage country are frosted with snow so thick it could be mistaken for layers of marzipan.

Crevices in those rocks are festooned with waterfalls stilled by ice.

Creeks line the shoulder of the road, their frozen surfaces shimmering in the light of the descending sun.

Through the trees, I see a snowy river ribboning away along snowy banks.

It’s so beautiful, so perfectly wintry. Like the Christmas cards I used to tuck away and save, making me feel nostalgic for the sorts of holiday seasons I had never had.

Except once.

Is that what I’m driving toward? That single, magical Christmas that broke my heart, yet still remains one of my most cherished memories? I push the thought away and just keep going, chasing this impulse I don’t fully understand.

One more corner, and the rivers become lakes.

Everyone in Ontario raves about cottage country in summer, but lakes in winter are their own special thing.

In the quiet still of the coldest season, when thick snow tucks in the world with snowy blankets, a vast frozen lake is truly a marvel.

So calm, so still. The sight of each one of them soothes me a little, dulls the sharpest edges of my agitated state.

Their names are comforting, too. Cranberry.

Maple. Moose. Loon. I turn up the radio and hum along to Beyoncé’s rendition of “Silent Night.”

And then, all at once, it’s as if ten years slide away like the miles between my car and Toronto. I’ve let my guard down, and I can hear his voice. That charmingly shy way he had of speaking, that crooked half smile.

I actually like it best here in winter, City Girl.

I crank up the music even louder, but it turns out you can’t silence a memory.

Well, I’ve never been here in summer to be able to compare the two, I remember replying with a smile of my own. In that moment, in his arms, I was certain I’d get the opportunity to visit Evergreen as often as I liked.

But it wasn’t meant to be.

My phone ringing again jerks me out of my nostalgic reverie. It’s my mother, and I’m far enough away from Toronto that it feels safe to answer.

“Hello, Emory,” she says, her tone measured and cautious.

“Mom,” I say, and I don’t know what else to add, because asking how she is feels like a powder keg question. But I have to. “How are you holding up? And…” I swallow hard. “And Dad? How is he?”

“So, you’ve heard.”

“The news is everywhere, Mom. It’s impossible to avoid.”

I hear a strange sound on the line, like a repressed sob. “Where are you?” she asks me.

“I’m in Muskoka,” I say.

“I thought you said you were doing an interview uptown.”

“Yeah, it ended up being farther north,” I improvise. “I’m hours away. I’m sorry. It can’t be avoided.” This feels true, as if I’ve had no choice but to drive and drive, away from this catastrophe. “Tell me how Dad is,” I press. “Where is he?”

“It’s a setup. Our lawyers are on it, and it will all be resolved soon.”

As she speaks, I can tell she really believes this—or at least badly wants to. And she wants me to believe it, too. She’s trying to protect me, in her way. Which still doesn’t make any of this okay. And is one of the reasons I didn’t want to talk to her yet.

“Mom, I saw it on the news. The police raided TurbOakes’s headquarters after months of investigating. They found evidence, they must have—”

“Stop!” Her tone is one of horror. Then she continues in an urgent whisper. “The police might be listening, our phones might be tapped.”

“Mom. If our phones are actually bugged—” I have to pause; this idea fills me with such deep dread. “Whispering isn’t going to help,” I conclude.

“I need you,” my mother suddenly says.

This is new. My mother has never sounded this way with me before. She has always been so good at keeping up her perfect veneer. I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen her cry. But I can hear tears in her voice now, and I hate to hear her sounding this way.

“What can I do?” I ask her.

“Your trust fund,” she says, her voice still low. “You still have most of it, right?”

“I do,” I say.

Now her voice contains notes of musing. “You’ve been so good with it over the years, haven’t you?

So…frugal.” The word sounds odd in her mouth, like she doesn’t truly understand what it means.

The way she talks about me often makes me wonder if she, too, has sometimes questioned our genetic relationship.

How could Cassandra Oakes, who once asked me what I thought a reasonable price to pay for a pair of sneakers was and then told me she was surprised it was around a hundred instead of a thousand, ever have given birth to someone like me?

A daughter who drives a used car on purpose, rents a condo, resolutely works to pay for these things when she doesn’t have to.

You’re like Lorelai Gilmore without the kid, Lani always says.

“It’s just for now,” she says, her voice so quiet I almost can’t hear it over the rush of road beneath my tires. “We’ll pay it back once this is all cleared up.”

I drive in silence for a moment. It’s so hard to think straight right now—until all at once, I feel clarity.

I know what I want.

To be free.

If I give her the money, and I never ask her to pay it back, ever, will this absolve me in some way? The idea feels the same as driving north does: unreasonably appealing. A solution I can’t resist, even if it turns out to be a Band-Aid rather than a tourniquet.

“Okay,” I tell her, pulling over to the side of the road and clicking on my hazard lights. “Do you have a pen?” I find the files in my phone, recite account numbers and passcodes.

“Thank you. I’m so relieved,” my mother says when we’re done.

“Me, too,” I tell her as I pull back out onto the highway and press my foot on the gas again.

“You’ll come back for the Christmas party—”

“Wait, really, Mom? You’re still going to have your Christmas party this year?”

“I’m famous for that party, Emory!”

I pick up speed, trying to put even more miles between myself and my city, my family.

“But right now? Are you sure—”

“It’s more important than ever! What would people say if I didn’t have the party? It would practically be an admission of guilt for your father, and he is not guilty.”

“Mom,” I begin—but then, with a crackle, I lose both the cell signal and the radio station I’ve been listening to.

Which is when I see the sign.

EVERGREEN, Population 1023 . And then, the town slogan, still the same after all this time.

Feels like home.

I find myself blinking back sudden, confused, and lonely tears. “What am I doing?” I ask the empty car.

The only response is the hum of my engine. Then plump snowflakes begin to fall, fast and thick. I manage to slow down enough to keep my abruptly fishtailing car from veering into the ditch just as I realize I haven’t gotten around to putting on my snow tires yet.

Lani was right. This is no weather to be driving in, especially without a properly outfitted car. I’ve been trying to outrun something that already has me beat. And yet, in a moment of weakness and fear, I drove as fast as I could to the last place in the world I should be.

Evergreen, Ontario—the only place that has ever felt like home.