The first thing she did was turn on the news, claiming she only wanted to know what the weather was planning to do. I noticed something else though, something buried beneath the surface—fear. I wasn’t sure what exactly she was so scared of, but I knew that emotion when I saw it. “Oh my God, those poor people,” she said. We were watching a live report showing hundreds of cars bumper to bumper on the highways unable to move more than a few inches at a time due to the treacherous weather conditions. “It is a good thing we left the mall when we did, otherwise that could have been us.” She was right. One of the highways they were showing was the exact one we’d taken to get to and from Carver. Leaning forward on my knees, I stared at the screen, unbelieving the power of this snowstorm. My cell rang from inside my coat pocket and I moved to answer it. My parents’ number lit the screen. “Hello?” I said. “Hey, honey, I just wanted to call and make sure you weren’t stuck somewhere out in this storm,”
