Down the Mountain

It was just after Christmas in 2001. I was alone in a borrowed house on Hunter Mountain, N.Y., with lots of my friend's booze, including champagne bottles I'd had to remove from the refrigerator to make room for food. I'd dropped my daughter, 15, and her two friends off to go skiing. I tried to read. Pictures of my friend's children--her son with his wife, her daughter with her baby and husband--adorned every table top.