This is a story about the shame my Mother and I have kept in dark secrecy for many years. The situation was thrust upon us and was in no way premeditated. We both still retain that our actions were for our continued survival and not meant to be taken or thought of as perverse, at least not by us.
The events happened about 18 years ago when my Mother was driving us home from a co-worker's New Year's Eve dinner party. All of us had a wonderful time there. It was a bit awkward for me as I was the youngest one in attendance. I was about 22 at the time. There were a bunch of folks there all dressed up in fancy attire. Even Mom, who wasn't much of a skirt-and-heels person, looked amazing that night. She wore an exquisite lime-green dress with matching pumps and a darker skin-toned pair of pantyhose which she almost never wore at all.
She was a very attractive looking woman at the age she was at the time. Mom always had a slender build and had short white hair which made her look even more statuesque. I remember thinking to myself that in those shoes she was about the same height as me.
We ventured out into the cold winter night and started the 2 hour voyage home. Mom's boss had a huge house but it was seated firmly into a large wooded area out in the middle of nowhere. Most of the roads weren't even paved yet. We joked and chatted about everything from some of the co-workers I met that night. I even made a comment about how nice she looked in a dress and nylons. Mom became a little bashful.
The labyrinth of woods and poorly plowed snow covered roads began to get the best of us as we tried to back track our way through the handwritten instructions and map. This was long before the invention of GPS and things were looking kind of bleak. Mom and I finally found our way to one of the roads with a landmark oddly shaped boulder next to a small bridge we had passed by on the way there. It was a straight road for quite a distance and I could tell Mom was getting a bit antsy as I watcher her dainty foot push down harder on the gas pedal. The minivan we were in was barely navigating the thick snow at such a speed but we trudge through it even faster now.
Without warning, a large creature crossed in front of us and seemed to stop cold right in our path. At first we thought it was a large dog, but later discovered it was a deer instead. Mom tried to stop the van but the road conditions were not having it. Quickly thinking mom tried to swerve and avoid hitting the animal. The vehicle had narrowly missed the deer but had now put us in a huge snow bank hitting a small tree/ The tree had actually stopped us with no visible damage to the front end, however, we were now on a 40 degree angle with the street.
The two of us did a quick self assessment of our physical condition. Both of us were fine, but a bit shaken up. We both breathed a sigh of relief and wondered just how we ended up like this in a matter of seconds. I got out of the minivan to inspect the damage. Both of our back tires were completely in the air as the vehicle lay snug in the embankment. It was clear that we couldn't back the van out, and I wasn't about to push it back either.
Mom hopped out of the van to see for herself. I almost laughed as her feet in her heels sunk right down into the snow half way to her calves. I instructed her to get back in the car because it was far to cold to be out here in such clothes. I tried a few failed attempts to put weight on the back end of the van to teeter it back down, no luck. I got back in as well. Mom turned the key which only managed to create one of the angriest noises that vehicle had ever made.
Out options were slim. We had no phones back then and even if we did there was really no way of knowing where we were in the first place, We would have to wait until morning when there would be some sort of traffic or at the least, daylight. The van was getting increasingly colder inside. the heat we did have came from when the engine was working and we had the heater on.
We tried the van's heat again and it had a little warmth left but started getting cooler by the second. The only thing that seemed to work were a few of the dash and over head lights. We may have been cold but we could still see pretty good. I started feeling sorry for my Mother who was wearing a dress that came down to her knees and a thin pair of pantyhose under her dress-coat.
I put my bulkier coat around her to keep her warm at the same time she started to shiver a bit. We moved to the back seats which were more comfortable. Gravity was pushed us up on the steering wheel and dashboard. I found a few blankets in the last seat and put one over myself and one over Mom's legs and feet. I tried to remove her pumps but she insisted she keep them on as they kept her feet warm. Surprisingly, the both of us were pretty comfortable given the situation.
We both started talking to the point where our breath was visible in the air. Now we were moving around nervously trying to keep warm with repeated movements. Finally we decided to combine efforts and sat huddled together for warmth. After a few moments of rearranging all of our additional clothes and blankets we made a pretty nice little burrow and shared each other's body heat. I had my arm around Mom and she sat right next to me. This worked for a bout an hour. Looking at the clock on the dash it was only about 1:15 am and we had a long way to go before the morning sun shown.