Jessie fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, and David drifted off an hour later with his wife pressed naked against his stomach, dreaming about the following day’s move.

In the morning, they drove north through the most desolate and yet beautiful country Helen had ever seen. The road cut a narrow, two-lane strip through the thick woods. Plump, icy pines stretched their needles outward into skirts to hold a lacy trim of snow. Even the trees looked as if they had fattened up for the winter. Under the thick branches she saw patches of dry brown earth surrounded by a circle of white snow that built its way upward until the drifts reached great heights of three feet or more, before thinning again and dropping to the edge of the next trees’ protected circle of ground.

So threatening yet so stunningly beautiful, she thought. And the bare branches of the birch trees scattered among the pines bent down to touch the tops of the drifts like a lover’s fingers.

They had not seen another car in over twenty minutes, and she supposed with some apprehension that they must be getting close. She could tell by the way her husband’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel.

What had bothered him about the new house eluded her with the faint qualities of a dream—she felt she almost had it, then it skipped away, taunting her. But it had bothered him in some way, of that she was sure. Perhaps he was simply nervous about the newness of everything; it had become painfully obvious to her over the past few months that he blamed himself for their recent financial trouble. She supposed that it was at least partially her fault. It had been wrong to pressure him to stay in a job he hated, but she had been driven by what felt right at the time. Now David felt he had to prove himself to her and Jessie; she felt it, felt his need. Maybe that was just as well; whatever happened, she would support him.

But Helen felt something more from him today, a tightness that hadn’t been there back in New York, even when his job searches came up empty time and time again. It seemed to her like a kind of hesitation, the feeling you get on a dark night when you’re alone on the street, and you pause just one fleeting instant before rounding that next corner, thinking about what might happen if there was someone or something there, just out of sight, waiting for you.