Road Trip

He had no answer for that. Her sister believed they were spending the day in town. Rowan’s coworker thought he was home, fixing the loose cabinet hinge Claire had been complaining about for two weeks. Their phones had shown no signal since they left the paved road.

The Subaru climbed a shallow rise. At the top, the highway vanished.

A snowdrift crossed it from shoulder to shoulder, a pale, wind-shaped wall nearly as high as the hood. Its surface glittered in the weak light, smooth in some places and ridged in others. The road beyond was visible only as a shallow depression running between banks.

Rowan slowed.

Claire sat forward. “That’s not a road.”

“It is underneath.”

“Rowan.”

He braked. The car stopped ten feet from the drift, tires crunching over crusted snow.

For a moment neither of them spoke. The engine ticked softly. A gust struck the passenger side and made the doors tremble.

“We can turn around,” Claire said.

Rowan looked behind them. The highway fell away through twisting bends and white hills. The route back was already fading beneath blown snow. Turning around meant reversing down the rise, finding a wider place, and driving into the growing dark with less fuel than they had planned.

“We can cross it,” he said.

Claire turned toward him. “You don’t know that.”

“I can see the road on the other side.”

“That doesn’t mean the car can get through.”

He hated the doubt in her voice because it sounded like his own. He had wanted the trip to be simple: a private day together, a clean stretch of road, something they could point to later when Alaska felt less like a place they had moved to and more like a place that had accepted them.

He put the Subaru in low gear.

Claire caught his sleeve. “Don’t make me be the one who says no.”

Rowan looked at her hand. Her fingers were bare despite the cold, a silver ring bright against her skin.

“We go twenty feet,” he said. “If it doesn’t take, we back out.”

“And if it does take?”

“We dig.”

“With what?”

He glanced at the shovel strapped behind the rear seat. “With what we brought.”

She let go of him. “That is not reassuring.”

He eased onto the drift.

The front tires climbed with a hard, muffled shove. Snow rose over the hood, spilling across the windshield in loose sheets. Rowan could barely see the road’s depression ahead. He kept the wheels straight and held the throttle steady.

The car lurched down the far side.

For one hopeful second, it moved.

Then the rear tires sank.

The engine roared. Snow sprayed from beneath the car, striking the wheel wells with a rapid, hollow rattle. Rowan kept his foot down, but the Subaru crawled no farther. The tires spun faster, polishing the snow beneath them into ice.

“Stop,” Claire said.

“I’ve got it.”

“Stop, Rowan.”

He lifted his foot. The engine dropped to an uneven idle.

The car sat nose-down in the drift, its belly pressed against packed snow. Beyond the windshield, the road continued empty toward a line of dark hills. Behind them, the track they had crossed was already filling with powder.

Claire stared at the dashboard. “We’re stuck.”

“Not yet.”

“Your definition of stuck is doing a lot of work.”

Rowan shifted into reverse and tried to ease backward. The tires turned. The car rocked once, then settled deeper.

He tried again, gentler this time. The wheels spun without gripping.

Claire closed her eyes. “No.”

“I can dig us out.”

“You said we’d only go twenty feet.”

“I know what I said.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m going to get us back onto the road.”

He opened his door. Wind slammed into him before he could step out. Cold seized his cheeks and found the gap at his collar. He pulled on his gloves, then reached into the back for the shovel.

The snow reached above his knees on the downhill side. Each step collapsed beneath him, filling his boots. He worked around the front tire, chopping at the packed bank, while Claire watched through the glass.

The shovel struck something hard.

Rowan leaned into it. His shoulders burned beneath his coat. He cleared a narrow channel in front of the tire, then moved to the rear. Snow had packed beneath the chassis, binding the car to the road.

Inside, Claire started the heater higher. Warm air flowed weakly across her hands. She watched Rowan bend and rise, bend and rise, his breath flashing white through the windshield. The light had gone from gray to blue in the time it took him to clear one tire.

When he opened the driver’s door, snow clung to his beard.

“Try it,” he said.

Claire shifted behind the wheel while Rowan stood outside, one hand braced against the roof.

“Easy,” he called. “Just ease back.”

She pressed the accelerator. The Subaru shuddered. The rear tires spun, throwing snow against Rowan’s legs. He shouted for her to stop.

She lifted her foot.

The engine continued to whine for a moment before settling.

Rowan climbed back in. His gloves were wet, and his fingers had begun to stiffen. He shut the door and pulled it hard against the wind.

Claire looked at him. “How bad?”

“Not bad.”

“Your face is blue.”

“It’s the light.”

She reached for his cheek. Her glove brushed his skin. “Don’t lie to me.”

He looked at the fuel gauge.

The needle rested below a quarter tank.

Claire followed his gaze. “How much?”

“Enough to keep the heater running.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

He turned the key. The engine coughed, then caught. “We’ll get out before it matters.”

The heater blew cold at first. Claire tucked her hands beneath her arms.

Rowan put the Subaru in reverse. “I’m going to rock it.”

“Rock it?”

Forward, then back. Build a track.”

“And if we dig deeper?”

“Then we stop.”

He pressed the accelerator. The car climbed an inch, slid back, and struck the drift with a dull thump. He shifted forward, tires spinning. The smell of hot rubber entered the cabin.

Claire gripped the door handle. “Rowan, stop.”

He stopped.

The silence afterward seemed larger than the car. Snow moved across the windshield in thin, fast lines. Somewhere beneath them, the engine clicked and settled.

Claire turned toward him. “We should call someone.”

He took out his phone. The screen showed no service.

“Try anyway.”

He dialed. The call failed before it began.

He lifted the phone toward the windshield, then toward the roof, as if the right angle might summon a signal. Nothing changed.

Claire stared at the screen. “There’s no service.”

“I know.”

“Is there a ranger station?”

“Not on the highway in winter.”

“Any gas station?”

“No.”

“Then what is there?”

Rowan looked through the side window at the empty road. “Nothing until we get back.”

The temperature had dropped below zero before they reached the highway. Now the cold pressed against the windows, whitening their edges. The sky darkened over the hills, and the last sunlight drained from the snow.

Claire unbuckled her seat belt and climbed into the back. “We need to see what we have.”

Rowan followed. Their coats brushed in the cramped space. Claire opened the cargo compartment and pulled out the emergency bag they had bought in Anchorage, still stiff with newness. She found bottled water, granola bars, two blankets, a flashlight, and a first-aid kit.

“Two blankets,” she said.

“I know.”

“Three bars.”

“I know.”

“No extra fuel.”

Rowan looked away.

Claire held up the flashlight. “At least this works.”

She clicked it on. The beam trembled across the ceiling.

For several seconds, they listened to the wind.

“Why didn’t we tell anyone?” she asked.

The question was quiet, which made it worse.

Rowan sat on the edge of the folded seat. “Because it was supposed to be ours.”

“Our secret road trip?”

“Our day.”

She lowered the flashlight. “You wanted to prove something.”

“To who?”

“To yourself.”

He looked at her. Claire had tucked her hair into her hood, but strands had escaped around her face. She looked tired now, and younger than she had that morning.

“I wanted one thing to go right,” he said.

Her expression softened. “You could have told my sister.”

“I know.”

“She would have worried.”

“She worries when we go to the grocery store.”

“She would have known where to start looking.”

The words struck harder than the wind.

Rowan returned to the front seat and stared at the road. “I thought we’d be back before dark.”

Claire sat beside him. “So did I.”

The heater blew warmer air, but the fuel gauge seemed lower than before. Rowan switched it off. The sudden cold entered immediately, crawling over his wrists and the back of his neck.

Claire looked at him. “Turn it back on.”

“We need the gas.”

“For what? Driving nowhere?”

He started the engine again. The car vibrated beneath them.

Outside, the highway had disappeared behind blown snow. The drift no longer looked like an obstacle they had chosen to cross. It looked like a wall that had closed over them.

Rowan stepped out once more, this time carrying the shovel and a tow strap. He walked to the rear of the Subaru and dug beneath the chassis until the metal edge emerged. The snow was hard as concrete. His shovel blade rang against it. His wrists began to ache, then numb.

He moved to the front and cleared around the tires. When he finally climbed back into the driver’s seat, his arms shook.

“Try now,” he said.

Claire shook her head. “You drive.”

He shifted into low gear and pressed the accelerator.

The Subaru strained. Its tires clawed at the packed snow, found nothing, and spun. Rowan eased forward, then back, trying to follow the narrow channel he had carved. The car rocked violently. The rear end slid sideways.

“Stop!” Claire shouted.

He braked.

The Subaru settled with a deep crunch.

Rowan released the accelerator. He knew before he looked. The car had dropped another inch, its undercarriage wedged tight in the drift.

Claire’s hand found his arm. “Rowan.”

He looked at the fuel gauge.

The needle had fallen again.

Far ahead, beyond the snow-covered highway, the remaining daylight thinned to a narrow band along the horizon. No headlights appeared. No engine sounded beneath the wind. There was no house, no service station, no passing traffic to notice the tracks ending at the drift.

Rowan rested his forehead against the steering wheel.

Claire leaned against him, her shoulder warm through both their coats.

“We’re going to get out,” he said, though the words felt fragile.

She did not answer.

The heater ran. The fuel burned. Outside, the Denali Highway vanished one white breath at a time, and Rowan understood that the road was no longer taking them anywhere.

End of chapter one. 32 more chapters and about 68,645 words in the full book.