Chapter 96 The Champlain winter

Chapter 96 The Champlain winter
The first winter at the Champlain Retreat Center is the hardest the foundation has faced since the early days.

A nor'easter sweeps down from Canada in late January, dumping four feet of snow across Vermont and closing every road within fifty miles. The power lines go down. The generators fail. Mateo and Daniel, who've been living at the retreat center full-time to oversee the final renovations, are stranded in the main lodge with a skeleton staff of three and a rapidly dwindling supply of firewood.

"We're fine," Mateo reports through a crackling satellite phone connection. "The lodge is well-insulated. We've got enough food for two weeks. The pipes haven't frozen yet."

"Yet," Sophie repeats from her position at the kitchen island, where she's been tracking the storm on her laptop. "That's the operative word."

"I'm going to go help them," Sam announces. He's home for winter break, and he's been pacing the living room for the past hour, checking and rechecking the weather reports. "I've got chains on my truck. I can bring extra supplies—firewood, propane, food."

"You can't get through," Margaret says. "The roads are closed. The state police are turning people back."

"I know the back roads. I've been driving them all summer."

"That was summer. This is a blizzard."

Sam has always been the quiet one—the one who observes, who processes internally, who roars only when absolutely necessary. But there's a stubbornness in him that I recognize. It's the same stubbornness that made him spend his childhood carrying a dinosaur everywhere. The same stubbornness that made him map every inch of the Champlain property, learning its secrets and its hidden paths.

"I can get through," he says. "I know I can."

Caleb, who's been visiting with Amara and Ellie for the week, stands up. "I'll go with you. Two trucks are better than one. If one gets stuck, the other can pull it out."

"Three trucks," Daniel says. He's been on the phone with Mateo every hour, his worry a palpable thing in the room. "I'm not staying here while my brother is snowed in without power."

Margaret looks at Caroline. Caroline looks at my mother. My mother looks at me.

"Be careful," I say. "All of you. And call us every hour, or Sophie will send the National Guard."

"I don't control the National Guard," Sophie says. "Yet."

The three of them set out in the early afternoon, their trucks loaded with supplies, their phones fully charged, their determination as solid as the snow that's still falling. Sophie tracks their progress on her laptop, her organizational skills now fully deployed in the service of crisis management. Eleanor coordinates with local emergency services. Isabella handles the legal implications of violating a travel ban.

By evening, they've reached the retreat center. The satellite phone crackles with Mateo's voice: "They're here. All three of them. Sam got stuck twice, but Caleb pulled him out. Daniel brought enough firewood for a month."

"And the pipes?" Sophie demands.

"Still frozen. But we've got space heaters and propane. We'll manage."

The storm lasts three more days. The family at the Sterling mansion takes shifts on the satellite phone, rotating through conversations with the stranded crew. Josie calls from DC every few hours, her voice tight with worry until Mateo reassures her that he's fine, they're all fine, the lodge is holding.

When the roads finally clear and the power is restored, Sam comes home with a new sense of purpose. He's been quiet about his future plans—graduate school, maybe, or a research position, or another dig season in Montana. But something shifted during those three days of crisis.

"I want to work at the retreat centers," he announces at dinner. "Both of them. Champlain and the mountain lodge. I want to develop the educational programs—the fossil walks, the geology workshops, the nature education for kids. That's what I was meant to do."

"You're a paleontologist," Margaret says. "You've spent your whole life training for research."

"I've spent my whole life learning how to teach people about the things I love. That's not separate from paleontology. It's the application of it." He looks around the table. "When I was showing Maeve those fossils last summer, I realized that's what I want to do. Not just discover things. Share them. Help people understand that the world is older and stranger and more resilient than they know. That survival is built into the fabric of everything."

Sophie, who has been listening with an expression of dawning approval, sets down her fork. "I'll write the job description. With footnotes."

"I know you will."

"Educational Program Director. That's your title. I'm deciding now."

"You can't just decide someone's job title."

"I absolutely can. I'm the foundation's legal counsel in training. It's in the bylaws."

"There are no bylaws."

"There will be. I'm drafting them tomorrow."