Aunt Santa

Chapter 4

Sara let out a sigh of relief as soon as their luggage was safely stowed and they'd found their seats on the train. "How long is the ride?" BB asked her as she shrugged off her coat.
"About an hour and a half. Do you have your tablet?"

"Yeah." She took it and played her cupcake game as the train gently lurched out of the station but her eyes started to close before they'd even left the city limits.

Across from her, Sam had also seemed to fall asleep, managing an iron grip on the phone in his lap as if she might try to take it from him the second his eyes were closed.

All around them, people settled quietly into their seats. Sara looked around, wondering how many were going as far north as they were. As always, she marveled at the people who chose to make this their daily commute, spending almost three full hours on a moving train to come into the city for work.

It was a question her coworkers asked when they learned she owned a house upstate in the woods if she planned to move there full-time and commute to the city. Sara could dispel the notion just by explaining how remote the house actually was and what that daily journey would entail. "An hour and a half by train and then a forty-minute drive from the train station. Not to mention navigating roads that aren't fully paved in the winter."

There was also the recent development of the house's lack of internet and spotty phone reception, which would make it difficult for her to attend last-minute, late-night meetings or work over the weekend, which had basically been her norm for the last fifteen years.
Since she rented the house to help pay the mortgage, she'd always had decent internet for it. It was only recently that she decided to forgo it, to see if there were people out there like her who were craving a getaway where they couldn't actually be reached by anyone. It turned out there were quite a few people interested in that.

She rested her head back against the seat as the train took them over the Hudson River, feeling an odd sensation roll over her body as they pulled further away from the city. It wasn't quite a relief or peace, she thought as she shifted in her seat, moving her arm so BB could settle her small body against her in sleep. A tingle of anticipation and worry, the two entwined, gripped her as she thought about the week that stretched out before them at the house.

It was so strange to think about an expanse of time without the shadow of work hanging over her. She knew she should've felt relieved at the chance to have a bit of a break from her life, to have time to think.

She wondered why she didn't.

The sun was just starting to set when the train finally pulled into Harpshead Station. As Sara suspected, there were only three people left in their train car by then.

She'd had to wake up BB when the announcement blared over the loudspeaker that their stop was approaching. Her niece yawned as they made their way to the car in the parking lot, staying close to the cart with all of their luggage. "Who's picking us up to take us to the house?"

"No one. My car's over here." Sara nodded over to the car parked in the lot. She grimaced at the sight of it covered in packed, damp snow. "Might take a minute to dig it out."

The kids stood there as she fought to wrench open the doors that had frozen shut under a thin crackling of ice. After she scraped off the inches of wet snow and left the car running for a few minutes to warm up, they threw the luggage in the trunk and climbed into the car.

BB pulled herself onto the backseat and looked around. "Where's my booster?"

Sam met Sara's eyes and she sagged back against her seat. "Your mom said it's in the suitcase. I'll get it."

"This is fun, right?" He smiled at her thinly as she kicked open the door once more. "So much fun."

By the time they were ready to leave, and the suitcase was repacked and back in the trunk, the sun had set. "We need to make one more stop," Sara said, the apology in her voice. "I ordered all the food we need from the market. We just need to pick it up."

"I hate the supermarket," BB moaned. Sam rolled his eyes.

She was glad she'd thought to order it ahead, to avoid dragging them around the store in Harpshead. Still, she hadn't figured everything out. For one thing, she had ordered so much food for the week and they had so much luggage that by the time the car was packed full of grocery bags, she could barely see BB in her rearview mirror.

"Okay," she said finally. "Now, we're really on our way."

"Do you remember this drive, BB?"

"No." BB peered around the corner of the grocery bag on her lap to try and get a glimpse out the car window. "I can't see anything. Too dark."

They'd pulled off the highway from Harpshead and had been winding their way down smaller roads for miles. It seemed the further they drove, the more snow appeared in huge banks on the side of the road. The trees got larger too, their evergreen branches heavy with snow.

"How'd you find this house again?" Sam asked.

Sara turned down the Christmas music that was coming in and out of range on the radio, one eye on her map. "My ex-boyfriend and I were at his office Christmas party and we started talking to this guy who told us he was selling his house upstate. I asked him if I could see it. And I ended up buying it."

"But why out here?" Sam frowned. "Kind of far from your apartment."

"Well, I had been thinking about buying a house for a while. Some place I could rent out and come visit in the summer. And I hadn't found anything I liked. Nothing felt right. I mean, I'd been looking for at least three years. And the boyfriend wasn't working out, at the time," she admitted. "I knew we were breaking up soon. I don't know, I just felt like it was a sign. I wasn't even supposed to go to that stupid party."

"You believe in signs?"

"I do." Sara glanced over, hearing the smirk in her nephew's voice. "I take it you don't?"

"I believe in coincidences." He shrugged. "And that some people will believe anything. No offense."

Sara felt the nerves in her neck prickle. She wanted to reply but knew if she did, the words would have the same sharp slap to them that Mo had recently adopted whenever she spoke to her son. "This is us," she said instead, easing the car slowly around a sharp corner. The road was slick with ice from a recent storm.

This final road was narrower than the others. The first time she'd driven to the house, she'd been shocked that it could actually be called a road at all. There was a point when it became so narrow that only one car at a time could pass or risk scraping against the massive pine trees that perched on either side.

Still, she felt a familiar thrill as she ducked her head and glimpsed the warm glow of light that just appeared through the trees.

"Pretty." BB peeked from behind the grocery bag and breathed out the word as they pulled up the driveway.

The house appeared from behind a curtain of tall trees, its exterior ringed with warm white lights. The front door and first-floor windows were all ringed with wreaths, and each of the windows held a single candle.

It was the last major expense Sara had made before quitting, to have someone decorate the house for them and set the lights on a timer.

Worth every penny, she thought. "Welcome to Christmas House."