I blink, startled, and it’s not because of the stupid nickname. I don’t have a license, just a learner’s permit. My mom had me driving all over the place when we first came here, but that was back then. Back when this was a simple two-week jaunt to get an old house she’d inherited ready for sale. There wasn’t another car in sight, so she figured, why not? She’s all about giving us kids experiences, about making sure we aren’t slaves to our iPhones, like so many of my friends back home. My mother’s always marching to her own drummer, general consensus be damned, usually to my horror. But back then, I had that thrilling, invincible, first-days-of-summer-vacation feeling that made anything seemed possible. Too bad that was short lived.

We’ve been nestled at Bug House like hermits for months. Well, that’s not totally true. Mom has made weekly trips down the mountain, alone, to get the mail and a gallon of milk and make phone calls to civilization. We were supposed to go back to Boston before school started, but that time came and went, and there’s no way we’re getting off this mountain before the first snow.

Snow.

I peer out the window. The first dainty flakes are falling from the sky.

Snow. Oh God. Snow.

My mother appears in the doorway, her body drowning out most of the morning light from the windows behind her. She’d never be considered fat, but substantial, tall and striking. Mom is someone people intrinsically want to imitate. She was one of the most popular professors last year at Boston College. My father used to say all the young men in her lectures were in love with her, and all the young women wanted to be like her. She can make a glamorous entrance even when stepping out of her car to get gas. That—and her size—are what separate us, people say. I’m short and rail thin, and people don’t usually pay attention to what I say or do.

“Why the sourpuss?” Mom says airily, twirling her blond curls into an elegant chignon at the base of her neck. “Is it because we’re not going back just yet?”

I don’t know how to respond. She says just yet, but I hear ever. The snow only cements the word in my head. My mother loves changing plans. She doesn’t let other people’s schedules dictate what we should do, which is why I’ve always missed lots of school. My mother will get these crazy ideas for adventure, like crabbing in the bay or going off to Old Sturbridge Village for a candle-making seminar, and we pick up and go. Like I said, life experience. Books and the inside of a classroom can only teach you so much, she says. It’s part of why her students love her.