Written by Lucy Palladino – Snow, dusted dark with salt and mud, clung to the sides of the dark grey road. Fields stretched out beyond the straight highway with old farm equipment and the occasional naked tree breaking through. Tufts of thick grass and old fence posts separated one pasture from another and, though invisible at such a distance, twisted barbed wire linked each of those crooked pieces of wood.

Laura was barely able to keep to the speed limit and her hands gripped the steering wheel so hard they began to go numb. Everything was quiet. The only sound that touched her ears was the road as her station wagon propelled forward over it. The radio had been broken for the last two months, and she’d been after him to fix it. She didn’t like the talk shows, and especially not the only one that came in loud and clear, but she preferred to listen to upcoming local elections and criticizing local and national policy over the sound of nothing. He’d said he’d take care of it, and she said that it was the one damn thing she asked him to fix and, somehow, he never had the time to do it.

Breathing in, she tried to fill her lungs but the anxiety was too much. It hurt, and her body shuddered as she exhaled again. Holding the steering wheel with one hand, she fumbled on the armrest beside her and put the window down. Cold air hit her face, like little shards of ice connecting with skin. That’s right, it’d been raining. She hadn’t noticed, the station wagon had been parked in the garage. It hadn’t hailed, at least. Before they moved here, she’d never experienced hail. Hell, she’d barely seen snow. Laura glanced over the field to her left. Now, finally, winter was relenting and giving in to spring like the season knew that she hated everything about it. It was like everything else here, trying to rob her of happiness. Angrily, she bit her lips hard until it hurt. He wasn’t against her happiness. She knew that all James wanted was for her to be happy. He wanted them to be happy again and, somehow, moving up here would do that. It was a chance to start over, as if a new place with new things and new people would change everything. Whether he had foolishly thought that or it was just some desperate hope, she didn’t know.

Laura sniffed and blinked several times as she felt a tear slide down her jaw line and against the warmer skin of her neck. Sunshine might’ve been replaced with a few feet of snow and she might’ve been forcibly educated in Illinois winter driving conditions, but it was all inconsequential. Whether the ground was white from sand or from snow, the truth was that it had stopped mattering a while ago. She only really complained about it all because it was right here in front of her; it was something tangible, that she could touch and destroy with the sharp end of a shovel.

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A transplant from northern Virginia, Lucy Palladino has enjoyed the Blue Ridge Mountains for over 20 years. In school she worked closely with literary anthologies as well as her college newspaper and has always loved the creativity that the Asheville area has inspired in artists such as herself.