As the week progressed, Dana fell deeper and deeper into depression. The living room became a cluttered, lived in mess, with clothes and shoes strewn about haphazardly. She rarely changed out of her pajamas, almost never went outside, and never contributed anything to the household.

Nick essentially turned a blind eye to her messes and mooching. He continued to cook meals for her every day. He tidied up her messes each morning whilst she slept in. He even did her laundry. On Wednesday he fashioned a makeshift closet out of scrap wood that would allow her to hang up her clothes right there in the living room. He never complained about her behavior, rather he related to it quite well. He was also a man of conviction, and he had given her his word that this week was hers to use as she saw fit.

Each day, usually either just before or after his daily writing session, Nick made a concerted effort to engage Dana. He’d ask her how she was feeling, if there was anything that she wanted to do, and if she had any thoughts about the future. He was always careful not to seem obtuse. His approach varied, and he spoke to her with warmth and charm. Each evening he’d make himself available to her for emotional support, though she never utilized him.

Dana just wanted to sleep, all day every day. She was essentially responsibility free for the first time in her adult life, and she simply wanted to do nothing. When she couldn’t sleep anymore, she watched reruns of morally bankrupt reality television shows on her laptop and read celebrity gossip websites. She made the conscious choice not to make any attempt at all to deal with her myriad emotional problems. She hoped that by simply ignoring them completely, her psyche would just assimilate them into something functional.

Thursday was the most exciting day of the week. After delivering a plate of fresh from the oven blueberry muffins to Dana’s living room camp for her ten o’clock breakfast, Nick expressed his desire to head into the city. He needed to pick up a few things, and he knew that she needed several creature comforts as well. Privately, he also knew that he needed to shake things up and get her moving again. This was the least confrontational way of achieving that goal that he could think of. Dana, wanting nothing more than to maintain stasis, lied through her teeth and agreed that a day trip would be fun.

It was just under two hours from Nick’s homestead to Pierre. For variety’s sake, he tried to alternate his visits to civilization equally between the capitol and Rapid City, which was just a shade over two hours away. Nick was prepared with a detailed list of things to get, from non-dairy creamer to a new table saw blade, divided by store.

Sitting in the cab of the big truck, Dana soaked in the scenery, noting that its simplicity was what made it beautiful. She had driven through plains, mountains, deserts, canyon-lands, and everything in between on her recent trip, but something about driving made her take the views for granted. The perspective from the passenger seat of the truck, so much higher than her car, was a cat of a different color. She felt her mouth curl into a smile every now and then, realizing that it kind of made her face muscles hurt a bit.

On SD-34, she stared through the windshield at the arrow straight road. It amazed her that she could actually see the road run into the horizon. It couldn’t possibly have been the first time this had happened for her, but there was something about this particular time. The gray asphalt with faded paint lines was sandwiched between gently rolling plains of brown accented with gold and green. The sky spread out above formed a beautiful gradient– nearly white at the horizon, royal blue directly overhead. No distractions.

“How far away do you think the horizon is?” Dana asked, breaking the peace in the cab.

“3 miles,” Nick replied without thinking. “I’ve had that same thought before, and I looked it up. The horizon is 1.22 times-the-square-root-of-the-height-of-the-view miles away.”

Dana smiled, trying not to laugh at him.

“Such a nerd,” she said shaking her head. “How fast are we going?”

“I can get us there in two minutes. Hang on.”

Nick rocked his boot down on the accelerator and the truck’s V-8 rumbled loudly in response. As they picked up speed, Dana gripped the door handle tightly. The truck was immensely powerful and accelerated quickly despite having already been cruising along quickly.

“Ninety. We’ll be at that horizon in two minutes.”

Dana used her phone to run a stop watch. She was more comfortable watching the numbers tick by on the screen than the dashed lines tick by on the road.

Two minutes.

She looked up. The landscape was so uniform and devoid of landmarks they might as well have been on a treadmill. She knew that progress had been made, whether or not it was immediately visible. She slouched back into the seat thinking about the nature of slow incremental progress. Was it futile to do things that yielded so little feedback? She’d spent the past twelve years in Los Angeles making what she believed to be incremental progress in her acting career.

How far away was that horizon?

Had she given up too soon, or was it simply a nowhere road? Endlessly tempting her to run to the horizon only to get there and realize that she was no closer at all.

Her thoughts were spiraling. This is why she was so wracked with depression. She couldn’t control her own mind. She’d never been able to. She’d start to cry uncontrollably in a few minutes, this was a borderline panic attack.

Her muscles tensed. Her legs twitched. She wriggled in the seat. She stared out the passenger side window, trying to get control, trying to be normal.

“It’s a boring drive, but once you know the road, it gets better,” Nick spoke unprompted. “There’s going to be a sign for eggs, cheese and milk on your side in a few minutes.”

She wondered why he was talking now. His timing was terrible, she was going through some serious stuff right now and he was talking about cheese.

“It takes some time,” he continued, pausing briefly between each separate thought. “It might be boring and tedious, but we’re getting there. Eggs, cheese, milk, then US-14, that’s about halfway.”

Then she saw it. A weathered plywood sign on the side of the road. It was painted white with large, freehand black lettering.

EGGS, CHEESE & MILK

Diagonally, in much smaller letters, across the corner were the words:

FARM FRESH!

An arrow under the words indicated a righthand turn ahead.

“What’s the deal with that?” Dana asked.

“Nice older couple. Born and bred out here. They keep about three dozen hens, three cows, a half dozen goats,” Nick was never really an outgoing people person before, but he always did have a knack for understanding what people were worth his time. “They do it all just the two of them. Milk everything by hand. Make artisanal cheeses the old fashioned way. No FDA credentials though, so it’s basically just a friends and neighbors type of thing.”

She didn’t realize it in the moment, but Dana’s anxiety had completely subsided thanks to the brief interruption. Her muscles had relaxed, her mind had calmed.

Once again, she was able to stare at the road ahead and simply see a road, not a metaphor.

Next Chapter: Chapter 11