One last thing

He had told himself it would be quick. One last thing before heading home. The phrase, one last thing, because it meant usefulness and proof. He was a doer. That was the mark he’d made. He did things, fixed things, handled things. People could count on that.

The car slid where the road curved and the plow had thinned the shoulder just enough to invite a mistake. It wasn’t dramatic. No spin. Just a quiet sideways surrender into the bank.

He sat there for a moment, hands on the wheel, listening to the engine idle. He wasn’t worried yet. Outside, the country road stretched empty in both directions. The last plow had gone by maybe an hour ago—he could still see its shallow ridges, already softening. The light was fading, the sky withdrawing. The engine sputtered then died.

He turned the key.

The engine coughed once. Then nothing. Again. Nothing.

The cold arrived slowly. The heater fan ticked uselessly, Frost began to film the edges of the windshield. He rubbed his hands together and smiled, the way he always did when something didn’t go according to plan. Okay, the smile said. Okay then. Turning his lips up gently but not dramatically it made him feel warm for a moment.

He thought of his home on Fair Street. Of warmth. Of his partner waiting, checking the clock, wondering what had taken him so long. He imagined the kitchen light on, the sound of something being put away. Inside the house, the kids would have abandoned a puzzle mid-corner, someone insisting they were close, someone else bored already, drifting toward another game or the television,  thats if there was still power. The table would keep the shape of their leaving, the chairs pushed out randomly, pieces scattered in a way that suggested intention, then none.

That mattered to him. Being expected.

The dashboard clock glowed faintly. Snow began to fill in the edges of the car, smoothing it. The engine’s warmth was becoming a memory.

That was when he decided to get out.

Practically. You don’t sit forever. You do something.

He pulled his hat down, shoved his feet into his boots, boots he’d settled for,and opened the door. Snow slid off the roof in a sudden collapse, dumping down the back of his neck and straight into his boots, sharp and invasive. He laughed once despite himself. Of course.

The road looked longer now. He shut the door carefully and then started walking.

He wished, abruptly, that he had bought those boots. The Scandinavian ones. Wool-lined, solid, beautifully stitched. He’d had a discount code. He’d balked anyway. Winter was almost over, he’d told himself. They’d just sit in the closet for a year. Now the cold found its way to his feet sending dulled, delayed messages.

He walked until his breathing found a rhythm, until the bend in the road appeared ahead. When he reached it, he stopped and turned back.

For a moment, he didn’t see the car at all. The flakes were small but countless, swirling up and down and sideways, mostly into his eyes. He blinked, wiped his face. Then he saw it, not a car anymore, just a mound bleeding into the bank. Looking around the bend, the trees were almost entirely white, their trunks plastered. The road had lost its shape, its authority quietly revoked.

The snow began to move with purpose, skimming low along what had been the road.  Wind kicked up and it was white in all directions. A tree, perhaps. A mailbox knocked over by a plow, its metal mouth open in complaint. He turned again.

The mound was gone.

Where the car had been was now only another drift. He stood still, waiting for his eyes to correct themselves, for the shape to return. It didn’t.

For the first time, something shifted. Not panic. Just understanding, arriving gently, the way snow does. There was no one checking the clock. No light left on. No sentence forming somewhere that ended in relief.

Home was not waiting.

He took a step, then another, footprints filling in almost immediately behind him. The snow kept falling.. And the man, who had done things, always walked on, carrying with him the idea of a house that existed now only because he kept thinking it did.