Justine’s place was somewhere on the other side of that wall, in what sounded like an odd location for a vacation house: just past coal country, between the Poconos and the Catskills in an economically depressed region called the Endless Mountains. There was no tourism to speak of, which was exactly what Justine liked about it. “No Starbucks, no Holiday Inn, no water parks. Just you and the endless mountains and the woods,” she’d told Mary Ellen. Then she’d shaken her head. “Those poor woods.”
“What?”
“The hemlocks. They’re being eaten by a bug from Asia. So the entire forest is in a state of decay. A tree fell on my house last year—cost me a fortune to replace the glass. But you know, the trees deserve to strike back. We fucked them over with globalization.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, it’s moody and interesting. I think you’ll like it. And you’re so far from everything, there’s nothing to do but work. You’ll be able to really dig in.”
Hard work was what Mary Ellen had come prepared for, the trunk of the Mini crammed with books and back issues of Artforum and of course, her journal—emergency supplies to prevent mental starvation during the long, dark January evenings. It would be strange, a whole week without electronic media, but she liked the challenge of it, like those juice cleanses her friends were always talking her into. Maybe she’d even enjoy it. Justine had told her the invitation was open-ended; she could stay longer than a week if she wanted to.
She noticed that the oil-change reminder sticker in the corner of the windshield said March 28. Matt must have taken the car in. The wipers looked new too, and the floor mats still had vacuum marks on them. It touched her, this silent undertaking of marital duties. This was what it was all about, after all—once the thrill of sex and the novelty of babies and the complexity of raising adolescents had all flared into life, then flickered out: the knowledge that when you go on a trip your husband doesn’t necessarily understand or appreciate, he will nonetheless make sure you have enough transmission fluid for the drive.
Food too. Matt had filled the back seat with grocery bags, enough supplies to last her the rest of the winter. “Are you expecting the apocalypse?” she’d asked, peering into a bag stacked with cartons of soup.
“I don’t know. It snows a lot up there; they say there might be a big storm at the end of the week. If you’re not going to take the big car, at least you’ll be prepared to sit and wait for someone to rescue you.”
“Justine has a snowplow service. But thank you, and please don’t spend the whole time worrying.” It was typical of Matt to over-prepare. He did a big shop every time snow was in the forecast, even though they lived two blocks from a perfectly good deli.
She was drawing near the long mountain, and now she could see a pair of tunnels punched into the base of it: one round and one square, with a dull cement surround that read LEHIGH TUNNEL. She plunged into the square hole and found herself in a tiled, fluorescent-lit tube reminiscent of a public bathroom. She’d never liked tunnels, and this one, in particular, was giving her that squeezed, helpless feeling of having one’s options suddenly wrenched away. Driving became falling as she sped toward a slowly widening square at the end, just like the swimming pool under a high dive, only in this case her eyes were open, and instead of a crash of water, she was met with a crash of light.
On the other side of the mountain, the landscape was completely white, no patches of dirt or grass showing. The land began to rise and fall on either side of the steady road, small ripples occasionally swelling into waves. Mary Ellen was already starting to feel the solitude—different from the brief moments she would enjoy in her parked car after a long meeting, or sitting quietly at the kitchen table before Matt and the girls got home. This was a weightless, tumbling feeling, with no horizon to fix on. The isolation would be frightening, she knew, if she thought about it too much or tried to resist. It would invite painful thoughts to take hold, thoughts she had no interest in entertaining. Her father’s accident had happened more than a year ago. It was time to move on.
Justine, of course, had insisted that the isolation would be good for her. “Artists need to quarantine themselves,” she’d said. “It’s the only way you can strip away all the bullshit and access your purest ideas.” Mary Ellen had no idea where to find her purest ideas, or how she would even know once she did locate them, but this trip was going to force her to figure it out.
Her family had been less enthusiastic about the idea of a week without internet or cell phone service. Sydney and Shelby had physically recoiled at her description of the house, and Matt had protested that it was dangerous.
“I’ll be fine,” Mary Ellen said. “People survived before cell phones, you know.”
“But, Mom,” Shelby had said, nervously fingering the zipper on her puffer vest. “No internet? I feel like you’re going to prison. Are you going to be all right?”
Mary Ellen started to wonder if she shouldn’t do this more often. Apparently, it was her steadfast reliability that had earned her family’s collective indifference. Now she had them worried and confused, which felt comforting. She remembered the way Shelby and Sydney had clung to her when they were toddlers, clamped onto each side of her torso with such strength that
