A Winter's Drive

"​It was raining ice. He flinched every time a hard pellet hit his windshield, threatening to crack it. They were like stones, or worse, because they were frozen. He wondered how many of them would have to strike the same spot to bore a hole in the glass. Michael was approaching the Canadian-U.S. border at Plattsburgh, in upstate New York. He hadn’t left the United States in nine years. He fingered his new passport, its pliant navy cover, and marveled at the date printed inside: it wasn’t expired. How long since he had had an unexpired passport? He did not even know. He had thrown the last one away."

"​The lines of cars advancing toward the customs agents in their boxes were long. Michael knew he would choose one and immediately regret his decision. No matter which queue you chose, the other one, the one you hadn’t chosen, would suddenly pick up speed, and begin to move at an incredible pace. There was no way around it. His father had always told him to aim for a female agent, that the female agents were nicer. His mother had always told him the opposite: the men are less likely to give you a hard time. It seemed, now, that he and his car were headed for a tall woman with a blonde ponytail."

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"But the wood floor panels were the same his family had left behind, as he had hoped. As quickly as he could manage, heart rate rising, he moved to the back right corner of the room and crouched down. He poked at one wooden strip, then another. The strip he nudged on a fourth try gave way.

He had come here for this, but still he was slightly surprised, mostly at the fact that the floor hadn’t been repaired. The piece of wood came completely loose with one hard tug, and Michael peered into the shallow hole he had created. There, inside, was a small metal box covered in dust and cobwebs. He cleared the box’s cover with his hand and without so much as opening it up, stashed it away in the knapsack he had carried in."