In a word—snowy. Very snowy. We are in an AirBnB waiting out the week after we flew from NYC to Montrose, Colorado. We went full mask + face shield, or as Calvin puts it, full Covid theater garb. We are in a beautiful house in town and things seem good.

No one here wears masks although everyone seems to have Covid. The man who built my parents’ cabin and then built their house has Covid. My friend’s grandma (aged 93 in a nursing home) has Covid. Even my 80-year-old mother dropped her mask as we walked around town. “I’m fogging,” she said. The kids were astounded and kept their masks on.

We’ve started saying, This is the town where everyone has Covid and no one believes in it.

Back in Astoria, we have a house sitter watching the cat and the neighbor. For the past month, Maggie has been very quiet most nights. Even so, right before I fall asleep, I bolt awake and think I’m hearing music. I make preparations to go to the basement and sleep on my cold couch in my office but when I press my ear against our shared wall (yes, I do that. I’m sorry), there is no music. It was all in my head.

Maggie’s son and his girlfriend have been coming round lately, and I watched a little, via security camera, of them decorating the front stoop. Maggie’s voice, querulous and thin, answered by her son, reassuring and calm. Once in a while the girlfriend would say something. Her voice sounded annoyed. I could see why: Maggie hung a decoration in the exact middle of the stoop, so anyone coming to her door would have to avoid it. It was a hostile placement for anything, much less a Christmas ornament.

It brought me back to visiting Calvin’s mother at the end of her life. She wasn’t all there mentally and I was terrified of her—she seemed to be simply an agent of chaos and I found it hard to locate the loving and warm person Calvin described from his memories.

Months ago Calvin had said that Maggie reminded him of his mother, and that bothered him immensely. I got that, although I couldn’t see it. Ben’s mother was a little wild but she was not malicious or vengeful. But when I heard the girlfriend’s voice, I remembered how irritated I was that I had to be there, that this unpredictable person was part of my marriage contract. I felt for this young lady—Maggie will be a burden on both her children for many years.

Then it hit me how deeply disturbing Maggie must be to Calvin. It hit home.

Here in the mountains, there is nothing but icy winter air on the other side of the wall. Still, last night I heard Paul McCartney sing just as I was fell asleep.