I worked fast, scraping enough of a viewing hole to continue, but by the time I got back in the cab, my fingers were numb and my jacket was soaked through. Worse, the cleared spot was already starting to ice over again.
“Come on, Kels,” I said out loud, needing to hear something besides the wind and the laboring defroster. “Where are you?”
Up ahead, the mountain road curved—or I thought it did. Hard to tell when everything looked exactly the same. I dropped into first gear, creeping forward at a snail’s pace. Any faster and I’d be driving blind.
I came up on the familiar switchback near Miller’s Point faster than expected, the one with the stone memorial for some kid who’d taken it too fast in the 90s. I knew this road. Had driven it hundreds oftimes. But in this white hell, it felt alien, dangerous in a way it hadn’t before.
Last time, the world hadn’t been white but pitch black. Levi’s bedroom door had been closed. That should have been my first clue—he never closed it completely; always left it cracked so the cat could come and go. But as I crept down the hall, eyes still bleary with sleep, Luna was meowing at his door, her back bristling.
When I’d knocked and gotten no answer, I told myself he was asleep. But the knob wouldn’t turn beneath my hand. I threw my body into the door, my shoulder breaking through solid wood as if it were particleboard.
He’d been wearing his new sneakers. That was what I remembered most about that night. A pair of Air Jordans he’d begged for when we were shopping for something to wear to his end-of-year banquet and dance at school. Like the right shoes could make him fit in, could armor him against whatever demons had taken up residence in his head.
They’d been too expensive. Kelsey had given me that look when I came home with them, the one that said we’d be discussing financial responsibility later. But Levi’s face had lit up for the first time in weeks, and that was worth any lecture.
He’d worn them once. To the banquet, where he’d made the A honor roll and been voted most kind by his classmates.
The Bronco’s tires hit a patch of ice, snapping me back to the present as the back end started to drift toward the guardrail again. I managed to keep it on the road. Barely.
My hands were shaking. Not from the cold. I was still back there. Back in that bedroom, bargaining with God. Take me instead. Take the house, my bike, everything I own. Just let him be okay. Let those shoes walk down the stairs one more time.
But God hadn’t been interested in bargaining.
Now I was searching again, through different blindness, for someone else I couldn’t afford to lose. The parallel was too sharp, too close to the bone. But this time would be different. Had to be. I couldn’t find Kelsey like I’d found Levi. Couldn’t live through that again.
Hell, I’d barely survived it the first time.
The windshield was freezing up again. I pressed my palm to the glass, accomplishing nothing. Everything was closing in—the storm, the memories, the crushing certainty that I was already too late. Just like before. Always too late to stop the people I loved from slipping away.
During the final months of our marriage, I’d watched helplessly as Kelsey faded like an old photograph. The girls were home for the summer. She’d thrown herself into routines—gym at dawn, meal prep on Sundays, planning their schedules like organization could fill the void Levi left. But I’d seen the truth in the moments between tasks. The way she’d pause at the top of the stairs, staring at his bedroom door. How she’d stop mid-sentence when his name almost slipped out. The way she flinched and pulled away when I tried to touch her.
I couldn’t fix it. Couldn’t fix her. Every time I tried, she’d pull further away. Built her walls even higher. Until I was watching her drown behind glass I couldn’t break.
We’d become each other’s walking triggers, living reminders of the worst day of our lives.
So, when she asked for a divorce, I gave it to her. Signed the papers, wrote the check, packed my shit, and moved over five hundred miles away. Better to be the bad guy than to watch her disappear one gym session, one pound, one perfectly organized day at a time.
Not because I’d stopped loving her. Christ, I’d never stop loving her. But because I thought maybe, without me, she could find a way to live again. Maybe without the weight of my grief added to hers, she could surface long enough to take a breath. Maybe we both could.
The joke was on me, though. Two years later, and I still couldn’t breathe. Still woke up at two every single morning, my heart racing. Still thought of those fucking Air Jordans every time I passed a shoe store.
The Bronco lurched again, tires spinning on ice. I’d drifted too close to the edge, could feel the road falling away to my left. I corrected hard, maybe too hard, fishtailing across to the other side. The guardrail appeared like a ghost, clipping the front tire.
“Fuck.” I stopped in the middle of the road, hands shaking violently against the wheel. My breath came in rapid, panicked puffs.
Get it together. Can’t help her if you’re dead.
I got out and scraped the windshield again, fingers numb despite my gloves. The storm showed no signs of letting up. If anything, it was getting worse. But somewhere out here, Kelsey was driving through the same hell. Alone. Probably scared, though she’d never admit it. Too proud to call for help, even if her phone worked.
Just like she’d always been too stubborn to admit she wasn’t okay. Too proud to let me see her break.
Back in the truck, I inched forward. Five miles an hour, maybe less. At this rate, it would take hours to cover the route. But what else was I going to do? Go home, pour a whiskey, relive every word I’d said to her last night, wondering if they were the last words I’d ever say to her?
No. I’d failed her too many times already. Failed Levi. Failed our family. But not today. Today, I’d find her, and she could hate me all she wanted as long as she was breathing to do it.
The radio static cleared for a moment: “—record-breaking accumulation expected. This is a life-threatening situation—repeat: Stay off the roads. Emergency services are suspended until?—”
I turned it off. Emergency services might be suspended, but I wasn’t. Not until I found her. Not until I knew she was safe.
