At the small clinic on Greene Street, a young doctor with tired eyes confirmed the sprain, rewrapped it with cleaner bandage, and told her to stay off it for a week if she had any affection for her future self. Ellen nodded and did not mention New York or desks or the particular future self who was supposed to board a plane with a carrying case and a new life. Ray waited in the lobby with his parka unzipped, reading an old Horizon issue he had found on the side table—her hot springs piece, she saw when she came out, the page dog-eared by some previous reader who had perhaps also walked the road. He folded the magazine shut without comment, as if catching himself mid-confession, and drove her, in his own battered truck this time, blue paint and a heater that worked on the third try, to the lodge where her suitcase still sat packed for the flight she no longer trusted.
In the lobby of the lodge, Christmas decorations hung with the determined cheer of a place that sold cheer by the night. A tree blinked. Someone had put Bing Crosby on a loop that had begun to sound like a threat. Ellen paused at the foot of the stairs, hand on the banister, and said, "Come to dinner. The lodge does a Christmas meal. Ham and too many pies and a salad that exists only to make the ham feel virtuous. You shouldn't eat canned peaches alone while the rest of the town pretends the year has been gentle."
"I usually don't eat at all on Christmas," Ray said. "Sleep through what I can. Wake up when the noise dies."