The flight doesn’t leave until later that evening, so I have time to kill. I go back to the car to get the clothes I just purchased. Being outside of the airport makes the fog lift a bit: the crisp, cold, nonrecycled air hits me, and it occurs to me that as easily and senselessly as I arrived here and purchased a ticket, I could turn around, cancel the flight, and just go home. But standing at the airline counter made me realize how badly I need out of Coeur d’Alene, where everything reminds me of everything. Is that why I bought these clothes? Was I plotting my escape without even knowing it? Dear Gena, my witness mind thinks she’s witnessing a woman having a nervous breakdown.

I schlep the Nordstrom bags through security past a series of blessedly apathetic TSA agents who seem not to care how I might board with these bags. I buy an overpriced suitcase inside the terminal and decide I’ll just pretend I didn’t know it was too big to carry on, play clueless. A very huffy gate attendant will check it for me as I pretend to be apologetic.

In the surreal hours between my unplanned arrival at the airport and my flight’s departure, I sit at a lonely airport bar that serves cocktails in pint glasses and tap away at my phone. I send my parents an e-mail to tell them about the trip, attaching my flight info, and letting them know where I left my car, for which they have a spare set of keys at home. I do my best to keep the e-mail light and sane sounding—Just decided to take a little trip last minute. Need to get away for a while. If anyone calls for me just tell them I’m traveling. They’ll be worried, but they’re already worried. The three of us cooped up in our madness together isn’t helping anything. I’m thirty years old, I think, holding up my end of an imaginary argument, I don’t need to ask permission.