A Crossroads in Winter

The sky is quickly turning from hazy red to a light pink and grey as the sun sets and day swiftly transitions into night. It is only 5:10 pm but darkness comes early and stays past its welcome in the New England winter months. I can see my breath, coming out in long plumes, swirling and disappearing, as I make my way through the brightly lit sidewalks. The path ahead takes me from the ornate mansion, which houses the Health & Healing department where I work, winding up towards the low-slung, modern building that seems to disappear into the hillside where the main lobby and check-in for the hotel are located. The walkways are clear and tidy, recently salted, with piles of sparkling white snow on either side, from the weeks’ recent snowstorm. Luckily, there is no snow in the forecast tonight, so my commute should be a quick and easy one. Fingers crossed.

“Hey Maddie.”

I turn and see my friend, Heather, who is on the bell staff & transportation team, leaning out the front door of the lobby.

“Are you going to strength training class tonight? It starts in 20 minutes.” she asks.

“No. I’m going to pick up my son from my parents and take him home for a mom-son dinner and movie night.

Are you working tomorrow? Let’s do a class at lunch?” I ask. Heather smiles and nods.

One of the (many) perks of working at Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires over the past 3 years includes that all staff is encouraged (really, expected) to fully embody the company ethos of healthy living and we had complete use of the facilities, including over 50 exercise classes held daily. During my time working at Canyon Ranch, I have completely changed my diet, my body, and most of my life, vastly for the better. I am happily committed to their message and fully embrace it. My boss encourages and often joins me if she can, in participating in an exercise class during lunch. In the last two years, I’ve spent equal time in the gym, in the spa, and having life-changing appointments with health professionals in behavioral health, nutrition, physiology, and movement therapy. I have very quickly adapted to a lifestyle I could never afford had I not worked here and received these benefits. I love and am deeply grateful for all of it.

Currently, it is getting darker by the moment, and though the walkways and parking lot are well-lit, I anticipate having to thaw out my car so want to get going. I say good night to Heather and continue on my way to the employee parking lot.

Rubbing my hands together, I pull my hat down over my ears as the wind picks up a bit. My car is at the back of the lot, under a bright parking lamp, and I hasten my step as it comes into view. Suddenly, I stop and look around. There are sporadic rows of cars, silent and cold. No one is in the parking lot with me that I can see nor are any cars running. It is very quiet, especially for just after 5 pm and a Friday to boot. But I feel like there are eyes on me. I stand perfectly still for a moment. It wouldn’t be the first time that I have a feeling of not being alone, while alone, on this property. The historic mansion, Bellefontaine, built in 1896, the centerpiece of the vast grounds, and where I office, is most definitely haunted. I have had interactions with the ghosts before, some pleasant, some not so pleasant. But, this didn’t feel like the ghosts. And they didn’t usually follow me outside. No, something else.

As I hesitate on the walkway, suddenly the thick silence is pierced by the soft screech of a barn owl. I turn in a circle, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, and am rewarded with the dark outline of this beauty with her impressive wingspan and glowing white face, heading out for her evening hunt. She has emerged from her known ‘house’ in the old barn building that now serves as the Outdoor Sports Department’s storage and flies silently and swiftly into the woods that border the parking lot.

My body relaxes on every level as delight fills me. Owls equal good luck and tidings in my book and to have not only heard her but seen her as well I consider this a double gift. What blessing is coming my way?

I shake myself and continue walking. I really need to get going. If I am late, and my mother isn’t busy gossiping on the phone with one of her sisters, she might be on her third (or sixth) beer by the time I get there, potentially in a 'mood' and it will be hard to extricate my son from her house. I don’t want a scene, as we won't get home for hours if she winds herself up, which she is known to do. I sigh deeply and loudly, my breath visible in the frigid night. I’m looking forward to a night of just me and my 6-year old. I have pizzas on the menu and a Disney movie in mind for the VCR. My tumultuous relationship with my on/off boyfriend of 2 years is OFF at the moment and I am thankful for that because he often jockeys for my attention, especially on the weekend. I need to figure out what, exactly, I am doing there, and why I keep going back ‘on’ with him. However, that’s not a problem to solve tonight. Tonight is for me and Jonah and pleasant, cozy activities.

As I reach my car, I'm thankful for how it is perfectly bathed in the light shining from the fluorescent parking lamps. Putting my key in the door lock, I freeze up again. Looking all around I don’t see anyone but it wasn’t a feeling of eyes on me that has me spooked. Through my driver's door window, I can see a bouquet of flowers and an envelope on the passenger seat. I quickly check and yes, my door is locked. As I unlock it, I am again thankful for the bright light above because I can see the back seat is empty. No one is in the car.

I slide into the driver's seat and can see the passenger door is locked too. I hit the all-lock button on my door, put the key in the ignition, and start the freezing cold car. I can faintly smell the carnations that make up the bouquet and their aroma turns my stomach. I wrinkle my nose a bit because the arrangement is clearly grocery store and nothing special. I know who they are from. And he somehow could get into my locked car, while it sits in the employee parking lot of my place of work, with no one noticing. I also think about the fact that my commute to work is about 35 minutes from my little apartment but from where my on/off boyfriend lives is over an hour. So it is obvious he had dedicated some time and effort to this today during working hours. I look at the envelope with my name printed on it for a long minute. As the shadows from the swaying trees bathe my car alternately in darkness and light, I glance around the parking lot yet again. I don’t see his car but that doesn’t mean he isn’t here.

So typical. I told him during our most recent relationship discussion that I didn’t want to see him for a while. Which definitely meant this weekend. So he decided to insinuate himself into my life and plans, regardless of my request, with this ‘romantic’ gesture.

Let’s be clear, in the past, there have been times, in fact too many to count, where I have viewed these types of incidents as romantic. Times I found notes, handwritten by him, in a box of shoes in my closet or a pocket of my clothes and swooned. Never thinking about the fact that he had been in my apartment when I hadn’t known (I had given him a key for some stupid reason) and had also likely gone through all of my things, more than once. Or the multiple times when he showed up when I was out with the girls. In the past, I found his showing up, uninvited, flattering, proof of his love and devotion, instead of annoying and slightly disturbing as one of my girlfriends so tartly put it, exasperated that we couldn’t just have a night to ourselves. Or when he would call me at work, in the middle of the day, just wanting to hear my voice. Yeah, I loved that until the day I couldn’t talk because, well, I was working and he went ballistic on me, calling me selfish and self-centered and asking why I really needed to hang up, with a weird accusing tone? I had hung up on him, shaking, that time. When I brought that particular episode up later, he said “I don’t know what you’re talking about?” Gaslighting was a favorite pastime of his when it came to our relationship. In the beginning, I didn’t even know that term to apply to my experiences but I would learn it in therapy, quite well.

As the car warmed and thawed out I had a few minutes to wait until I could see through the windshield and get going. I looked at the envelope with my name on it for a long moment while the wind picked up and started howling a bit outside. As I reached for it, all of a sudden there was a knock knock knock on my window, startling me and making me jump in my seat as I whipped around, expecting to see him.

As I peer through the window, I see it is my friend Harris, our resident Canyon Ranch ‘hunk’ who works in my department as an exercise physiologist peering in through the icy window. Harris is smiling at me and gesturing that I roll down the window. He is not only handsome but genuinely a good guy and work friend. I open the door, as the window is still frozen, as he says “I’m so sorry to scare you Maddie! Was just wondering if you were ok, and your car is good? I saw you sitting there for a few minutes looking around and thought I’d check on you.” I smile at him and relax a bit. Harris is a midwestern, cornfed, all-American boy, and everyone likes him, including me. He helped me put together a great exercise program after I transferred into my role in our department and we spend time chatting on and off, casually, throughout the day when we work together. Harris is also engaged to a girl, Teresa, who used to work with us. Their relationship was quite the whirlwind. Sometimes, I wonder about them as a couple as it all happened so fast. When I started in the Health & Healing department at Canyon Ranch, Teresa was assistant to the Director and kind of a party girl. She was fun and flirty and we went out for after-work drinks a few times and I enjoyed her on a ‘friend from work’ level. However, Teresa had had her eyes on Harris since before I knew either of them. When they finally started dating things changed with Teresa. Fast. Instead of the trendy clothes she favored when I first met her, she started wearing pearls, twinsets, and demure skirts, her hair pulled up in a chignon. Teresa and Harris started attending church every Sunday together and then suddenly, they were engaged. I kind of felt like Harris was a little bewildered as to how this all happened. A month into the engagement Teresa quit her job to “prepare for their life together”. Whatever that means. I hope it works out for him.

Now, leaning slightly out the door, I say, “I’m good, thanks! Just waiting for the car to warm up.”

Harris smiles that brilliant smile of his and says “Cool”. Looking past me he says, ‘Oh, that’s what it was.”

I look at him, questioningly and he says, “Oh, I met your fiancé earlier. I didn’t know you were engaged?”

My blood runs cold. Then hot.

I blink, hard. “What?”

“Yeah. I saw this guy by your car when I got to work earlier today. He was doing something to the window and I went over to him to see if he needed help. He introduced himself and told me it was your anniversary and he was leaving you a surprise.”

I am mortified and feel my cheeks get warm and flush, my body full of shame and anger. I knew it would sound PSYCHO if I told Harris that I was not engaged. My on/off boyfriend, whom I started calling “the monster” in my head recently, had done this several times during the last year: telling people, like my landlords, who lived in the same house, below my apartment, that he was my fiancé. He had never asked me to marry him and I had no ring. He alluded to marriage all the time and it used to wind me up and then leave me deflated when the “special occasion weekend” he arranged, and that I had to get babysitting for so we could be alone, didn’t materialize in a proposal and ring. But at this point, I had moved to a place where I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be in a dating relationship with him, never mind marriage. We were supposed to be taking time apart but he shows up at my work, gets caught breaking into my car, and just cooly rides it out by saying he’s my fiancé. Oh, and it wasn’t our anniversary of anything.

Luckily, as all of these thoughts and emotions are swirling through me, the wind picks up, quite intensely, and Harris is saying goodnight instead of pursuing our conversation. Whew. I know I will definitely have to figure this out, but not this minute. My car is warm now, and I put it into in drive, trying to shake off feelings of dread and focus on my immediate life, the present moment, and my evening with my son.


Grimacing a little, as I put the car in drive and head for the road home, I hope this is it for surprises for the night.

Then, I remember the barn owl. Magic. Good tidings and omens. Picturing her soaring out of the barn earlier tonight free, fierce, and unstoppable, I feel lighter and hopeful. I have choices.

Before I pull the car out onto the dark, winding road, snow starts falling in thick flakes, atmospheric and deafening. I sigh. Forecasts be damned. I stare into the dark, wondering where my life is going to take me next. As I turn out the exit and slowly drive up the hill, I push play on the tape in the car deck and let the melodies of REM buoy me, while the heater blows my hair back, kind of like an MTV video. It’s the end of the world as we know it.

Lost in my thoughts and the music, I don’t notice the car lights pulling out from the employee parking lot behind me, following me up the hill.