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“I have no idea.” She peered at the road ahead. It was two lanes and technically paved and there were no other cars on it in either direction, which was either fine or deeply concerning and she couldn’t decide which. The mountains had gotten serious in the last twenty miles, serious in the way that made the word mountain suddenly feel inadequate, like she’d been using it to describe hills her whole life and was only now meeting the actual thing. They rose on either side of the highway in a way that felt less like scenery and more like presence. “Becca, what if this is wrong.”
“It’s not wrong.”
“What if I took a wrong turn somewhere and Merrybrook doesn’t actually exist and I’ve driven four hours into the Montana wilderness and nobody knows where I am...”
“Your phone knows where you are.”
“My phone is currently telling me I’m on a road that doesn’t exist!”
“Allison.” Her sister’s voice, patient and slightly amused. “You applied for this job. You did three interviews. You signed a contract. The school district sent you a welcome packet with the principal’s direct phone number. Merrybrook exists.”
“The woman at the gas station had never heard of it.”
“Small towns in Montana aren’t always on everyone’s radar.”
“She lives in Montana!”
“She lives in a different part of Montana.” A pause. “How’s the car?”
Allison looked at the dashboard. “Making a noise.”
“Still?”
“It comes and goes.” It had started somewhere around Missoula, a soft, periodic knock from somewhere under the hood that the mechanic had described as probably fine with the confidence of a man who would not be driving it three hundred miles through mountain terrain. “The mechanic said...”
“If you tell me the mechanic said probably fine again I’m going to drive up there myself and...”
“He seemed very sure.”
“Allison.”
“He had a lot of certifications on the wall.”
Becca made a sound that was not quite a word.
The highway curved again, harder this time, and Allison slowed down and came out the other side into a stretch of road flanked by dense pine on both sides, the trees so tall and close they formed something almost like a tunnel, the light filtering through them green and gold and fractured. It was, objectively, beautiful. She would have found it beautiful under any other circumstances.
Under these circumstances she found it beautiful and also slightly threatening.
“Tell me again why I clicked apply,” she said.
Becca was quiet. This was a thing her sister did, paused before saying something real, like she was checking it for sharp edges first. It was one of the things Allison loved most about her and occasionally found maddening.
“Because you’d been in that city for six years,” Becca said finally, “and you were miserable for at least three of them, and you were too busy taking care of everyone else to notice.”
Allison didn’t say anything.
“And because of Ryan.”
She closed her eyes briefly. Opened them because she was driving.
“I don’t want to talk about Ryan.”
“I’m not saying you have to talk about him. I’m just saying he’s part of why this is the right move. You gave two years to someone who...”
“Becca.”
“...who treated you like a resource. Like something he could draw on when he needed it and put back on the shelf when he didn’t.”
