trials

Every year around the same time, Chloe made the trip down to Miami to visit her parents. She only saw them once a year, owing to the fact that if her family was to maintain some semblance of, well, family, the duty rested upon her shoulders to show up for Christmas. This was because her parents never came to visit her in New York, for all of the five and a half years she had lived there. Her father detested the city, having grown up among palm trees and sunny open spaces in Florida, and also having developed a severe case of claustrophobia crawling through pyramids on an Air Force tour in Egypt in the 60s. Her mother made verbal promises to visit, but unfortunately she had that dreadful combination of being a persistent procrastinator and non-commitant.
As such, every year, the month of December meant having to arrange for the trip: buying the plane ticket, shopping for "New York gifts" of which her family members were fond, but which had to be non-liquid, unbreakable, and not too heavy, stuffing said items in her suitcase, and then the pleasant experience of LaGuardia Airport on December 22nd.
She dreaded the whole process every year, but she had to admit that once she landed at Miami Airport and the doors of the baggage claim slid open before her, the rush of warm and humid air signaling that she was home for Christmas, it was worth it.