Crissa's Mate

Chapter Thirty-Five

When the two pulled into the driveway of Crissa's home in the mountain neighborhood of Grousewood, her mother came running out of the front door to greet them. Crissa barely made it out of the front seat of the car when her mother practically attacked her with an embrace.

"Crissy! Angel! You're home!"

"Yeah mom. It's me." She then endured numerous frantic kisses on each side of her face and smiled back at her mother.

"It's good to be home, Mom." She then looked up at the house, illuminated in the darkness by amber tones from the garden floodlights.

"We were so worried!  The whole week after you left Berlin for the countryside!"

"Yeah. Total blackout, Mom. No contact. It was scary, but . . . pretty amazing too."

"Well, you'll just have to share everything  that happened with us, young lady."

"Sure, Mom."

Crissa couldn't imagine her mother hearing the horrific details of the past ten days—let alone the fact that she had, in the process, fallen in love with someone.

"Are you hungry, Crissy?"

She got out of the car and went gone around the back of it to help her father with the luggage.

"No," she called back. "Not so hungry as just tired, Mom. I never could sleep on an airplanes. Remember that trip we took to Florida one time? Even that wiped me out. This was like . . . so much farther."

"I know, Honey. You must be really exhausted."

"I'll be OK, Mom. And super ready when school starts at UBC next week."

The three of them left the car in the driveway and headed into the house through the front door.

The smell of freshly baked pie or cake wafted through the air as Crissa entered the living room, telling of delightful homecoming surprises in the kitchen. As she dropped her bags on the floor and collapsed on the long sofa, her mother continued on into the kitchen, ostensibly to bring her something freshly baked. While her father carried her suitcases upstairs to her bedroom, Crissa's cell phone in the pouch of her UBC sweatshirt suddenly began to ring. Though she had charged the battery before leaving the Berlin airport, the sound of her phone had been virtually unknown to her for the past two weeks.

"Yes?" She answered.

"Crissa? It's me."

"David?"

"Yeah. We're still in Seattle. Waiting for our connection flight to Fairbanks. Are you home yet?"

"Oh my gosh, yes. I just arrived. How are things with you guys?"

"Not the best. I thought Brad and the professor where going to kill each other on the plane until we got here."

"I get it . . . and Julie?"

"I think Dr. Dekker put some pills in her food back at the terminal in New York. She's really just still out of it. We're practically carrying her."

"God, he's so . . .  David, will you call me when you get home? I'm with my parents now and things are going to be pretty tight for a while. But I want to know you've made it home."