Karen Winters's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Karen Winters pressed the gas again and the rear tires whined in the snow. The sedan didn't move. She was forty, alone, halfway up a logging trail she hadn't driven in years, trying to reach the family cabin before the blizzard swallowed the road. She had told no one she was coming. Her husband was somewhere she didn't know. Her stepdaughter had stopped answering her texts three days ago. The wipers slapped at snow that came down faster than they could clear it. Karen eased off the pedal and stared at the white wall past the hood. The last time she drove in snow was twenty years ago, in college, in a car that had front-wheel drive and a boyfriend in the passenger seat telling her what to do. This car was long, low, and rear-wheel. Wrong for everything outside her garage. She checked her phone. One bar, then none. She opened the door and cold hit her legs through her jeans. She had packed wine. She had packed her good boots and a phone charger. She had not packed a coat. The rear wheels sat in a rut deeper than her knee. Snow packed under the chassis held the car up like a cradle. She kicked at it with her boot and the snow barely moved. She got back in and tried reverse. The tires spun. She tried drive. The tires spun. The engine noise was the only sound for miles. She popped the trunk and waded around. Inside, under the wine box, was a black rubber mat with a ridged surface. Devon had put it there in October. Her stepson, home from college for Thanksgiving, had spent a Saturday loading the trunk with things she would have laughed at a year ago. He hadn't explained the mat. He had said, "For the tires. If you get stuck." Then he'd closed the trunk and gone back to fixing the porch step. She pulled the mat out. It was heavier than it looked. She dropped to her knees behind the rear driver-side tire and jammed the ridged edge under the rubber, hard as she could. Snow packed into her sleeves. Her fingers went numb before she finished. She got back in, put the car in drive, and eased onto the gas. The tire caught the mat. The sedan lurched forward six inches. Then the mat shot out behind her like a kicked shingle, and the wheel dropped back into the rut. She heard it happen before she saw it in the mirror. She tried again with the passenger-side tire. Same result. The mat spat out. The car sank deeper. Karen sat with her hands on the wheel. Snow covered the windshield in the time it took to breathe twice. The engine idled. She was not getting out of this rut. She reached for her phone and held it up to the window, watching for one bar to come back.