By the time she rushed from his downtown apartment and boarded the light rail, there was no explaining it. She’d nodded off and slept through the night, waking just before dawn. As the city slid away and the suburbs materialized, the previous night’s memories blended into the passing blur. Dinner at Jovanini’s Broken. The candlelit staircase. The intimate wine cellar. Chilled Olympia oysters. Bottle of 2015 Poliziano. Shared Elk Bolognese, the gamey richness a harbinger of the carnal night to follow. Cocktails at Cooper Lounge above Union Station. The throngs that came and went.

“You can take the Colorado Zephyr all the way to San Francisco,” her lover said.

A silence followed as she wondered if the comment was an offer. Later, whiskeys on his terrace, forty floors up, before falling into bed.

Exiting the light rail, she stood on the platform gazing at the Denver skyline. Commuters moved around her with purpose. The city seemed small in the morning light.

Walking up the path to their suburban home, she noticed the crooked shutter Kevin, her husband, never bothered to fix. Her hand hovered over the doorknob. Through the window, her five-year-old son, Brian, ate waffles at the kitchen table.

“Mom!” Brian said, running up as she opened the door.

She hugged him against her leg. Through the archway, Kevin stared at his laptop.

“Dad, she’s home,” Brian said.

“She’s back!” Kevin said, cutting her a look. “Didn’t I tell you she’d come back?”

Brian nodded, climbed onto a stool, and bit into a waffle.

“Good thing,” Kevin said, grabbing his keys. “I’ve got a big morning.”

She sat down at the table. Outside, Kevin skidded out of the driveway.

“Where were you?” Brian said. “Dad kept me up all night playing music.”

“I fell asleep at a friend’s,” she mustered.

Satisfied, he stabbed a whole waffle with his fork and took a bite.

“Use your knife,” she said.

He set the waffle down and awkwardly cut.

“What did your dad say?”

“He said it might just be me and him for a while.”

They walked in silence to the bus stop. The sky was a stark blue, endless the way the sky could be in Colorado on a cloudless day. The bus creaked to a stop. The faces of children peered down. Brian took the first step and turned back.

“Will you be there when I get home?”

“Of course,” she said.  

All was still, save Amazon vans on corners, as she walked home in the dull morning calm. A delivery man photographed a package on their porch.

Inside, the house was quiet. She locked the door the way she’d been taught to as a child. Two texts notifications ribboned on her phone.

Kevin: It wasn’t like I didn’t know, but he had to wake up wondering where his mom was. How can you live with that?  

Her lover: Zephyr to San Francisco?

She set the package on the counter and did the dishes. When she reached the waffles, she picked up the plate and hurled it. The pieces littered the floor and a waffle slid down the wall.

She filled a glass with vodka and wandered through the house. She was not yet forty but felt her life had passed her by. The world had changed so much, but the effects never seemed to reach her. She wondered if she’d had a baseline to begin with. She’d spent her youth waiting for society to transform into something she understood. When it didn’t, she sought ways to rebel but found nothing that didn’t make her feel like she was doing something wrong. How could she be blamed for straying? Or falling in love with awful men? She’d believed every promise. And now had a male son, who she loved, but did not believe would one day become good.

She stood in Brian’s doorway. His room was decorated how they chose. He was too young to create his own space. She stood in the doorway of their bedroom: a bed with four posts, a canopy above. She entered the bathroom: two sinks, a separate tub, shower, and sauna. When they bought, she imagined a reprieve from storms weathered together. Tucked away in the walk-in closet, she found the green Samsonite suitcase purchased before she went away to college. The last time she’d been anywhere.

She texted a response to Kevin: I can’t.

But she didn’t press send.

She sat in the sauna until she couldn’t take the heat, then stayed longer. When she had no strength, she fell against the door and curled into the fetal position on the bathroom floor.

Eventually she sent the text to Kevin.

She walked downstairs and opened the freezer. The cold goose-pimpled her skin. She opened the package. The memory flooded back. She and Brian ordering it online together. Her wine-drunk. A custom message emblazoned on a wine glass. They’d chosen “Best Mom Ever.”

*

The California Zephyr departed from Chicago and stopped in Denver, so there were passengers when they boarded. Through Colorado, she felt a lightness. The train chugged away as they drank leisurely in the bar car, watching the scenery melt outside the window. The train turned north after Grand Junction and entered Utah. A dullness set in as the afternoon lulled into evening and her speech began to slur.

Around sunset, the train reached Salt Lake City. A family boarded and a worried mother rushed her young son through the bar car, pausing momentarily to cast a concerned glance. Outside the window, the surface of the great Salt Lake shimmered smooth as glass. The mountains and sky mirrored perfectly back. She wandered over and stood inches from the window. In its reflection, tears streamed her cheeks. At the lake’s shore, white pillows of salt foam accumulated on the sand and oscillated softly in the breeze.

*