Hillary Adrienne Stern fiction story The Poughkeepsie Exit
Rosetta Stone, by Kennan Hutchins, Acrylic and Ink on Canvas, 28″ x 20″, 2025. (Photo by Manfred Wolf)
The Poughkeepsie Exit
by Hillary Adrienne Stern
I slide my eyes down to my cell phone. Still no message from our daughter. Why haven’t I heard from her? I texted her first thing this morning, again, around noon, and again right before we got on the road nearly three hours ago. All she has to do is respond with an ok. I would even settle for a thumbs-up emoji.
It’s probably nothing to worry about. Most likely, she’s still sleeping. She must be exhausted. God knows, I am. Last night, while Peter was at the hospital seeing patients, I spent nearly an hour on the phone with her, while she alternated between crying and hyperventilating. It was 2 a.m. before she calmed down enough for me to bring the call to a close.
The car radio is tuned to NPR, and Krista Tippett is talking to some guru. I usually find the sound of her voice calming, but today it’s just noise. I glance at Peter, but as usual, the flat planes of his profile tell me nothing. He seems totally focused on the road, as he should be on this treacherous stretch of the Taconic with its snaking switchbacks and narrow lanes separated only by a thin metal rail. And though I usually hate this section of the parkway, today, I’m grateful for anything that might distract him from noticing how anxious I am.
“What’s up?” he asks, without taking his eyes off the road.
“What do you mean?” I try to make my voice sound casual.
“You’ve been checking your phone every few minutes for the last hour.”
I take a deep breath before answering. “I texted Emily a while ago. She hasn’t responded.”
“And?”
“She called last night pretty upset.”
“Meaning she was sobbing.”
He knows her well. And yet, he doesn’t. Because Peter is never the one who gets woken up in the middle of the night, grabs the phone, and hears only ragged wailing. He’s never the one who tries to get a word in edgewise to break the cycle of her hysteria. And he’s never the one who stays on the phone for hours while his eyes become bleary and his head grows heavy until, finally, Emily edges away from whatever psychological cliff she’s teetering on and becomes calm enough, or at least, exhausted enough to try to go back to sleep.
“Have you tried calling her?” he asks.
“Back at the rest stop.”
The road straightens out and Peter glances at me. His face has that neutral expression he uses when he’s talking to a difficult patient. He thinks I worry about Emily too much. That I’m too quick to step in and help her. That if I held back, she’d be forced to solve her own problems. And that too many times, our plans have been derailed because I didn’t do exactly that.
It’s true I find it hard to know when to get involved and when to get out of the way. But if I’m going to err in one direction, it’s going to be doing more, not less.
“You want to swing by her place,” he says.
“Well, we are going to drive right by the Poughkeepsie exit.”
He’s silent.
“I don’t want her to spiral out of control,” I say.
“You don’t know she will.”
“You don’t know she won’t.”
In the seconds that follow, I can tell Peter is trying to decide which would be worse, my continued worrying if we don’t make a detour, or the time that will be lost from our weekend if we do. But it’s only just approaching 3 in the afternoon and all I want to do is check in with Emily. Even if we end up staying at her place a whole hour, we can still make it to East Chatham in time for dinner. The marriage refresh program doesn’t officially kick off until tomorrow.
Peter has been looking forward to this weekend ever since Dan Goodman, the other pulmonary doc in his practice, told him about Marriage Refresh. It shocked me when Peter proposed it, not because our marriage doesn’t need refreshing, but because the program sounded sort of touchy-feely, not usually Peter’s thing at all. It isn’t that he doesn’t believe in therapy. He’s just never felt he needed it. But Dan told him the program practically saved his marriage, and Peter seems to believe it can work miracles for ours as well. So, the last thing I want to do is cast a pall on the weekend before it’s even started.
I look out my window and, for the first time, notice how bare the trees that border the road are. Peter must be disappointed. He was hoping mid-October would coincide with peak leaf-peeping. But we’re clearly too late. Bereft of foliage, the trees seem shrunken. Their thin taupe branches shiver in the wind. The few remaining leaves are brown and shriveled, and there’s something sad in the way they cling on. If the sun were shining, it might still feel like a crisp fall day. But the sky is steely and ominous.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Emily’s apartment is in the basement of a single-family house, a few blocks from Vassar, where she went as an undergraduate. Four years ago, on a golden afternoon in late August, we helped her and her friend Kate move into the place. It was Kate’s senior year, and it should have been Emily’s as well. But she’d fallen behind the semester before and dropped a couple of classes to avoid failing them. So when Kate graduated the following May, Emily stayed on while another senior moved into Kate’s room. It took Emily another year and a half to finish her degree.
When she finally finished last December, we were elated. I thought she’d come home and look for a job. Instead, she said she’d found a new roommate, gotten a job with a Family Services organization in Poughkeepsie, and was thinking about grad school. Also, her meds were working, and she had a new therapist she liked.
I wasn’t thrilled with her living so far away, especially since she was between roommates. But she was earning enough to pay her part of the rent, and Peter thought we should support her attempt at independence. He even agreed to cover the other half of her rent until someone new moved in. So, she stayed on. And for several months, there were no midnight phone calls.
The entrance to Emily’s place is around the back of the house and down a flight of cement stairs. At the bottom of the stairwell is a rusty drain. The tenant is responsible for keeping it clear; otherwise, the apartment can flood. As we wait for Emily to answer the door, I study the leaves covering the drain like they can predict the future before moving them away with the toe of my shoe.
Peter knocks again and I try to stay calm as the seconds pass with no sound from inside. Of course, she might not be home. Or she might still be sleeping. But what if she took something? Like that time when she was too anxious to give her meds time to work and kept taking more and more. My heartbeat quickens. Maybe we should call a locksmith. Or 911.
I look at Peter and swallow hard. And just then, the door opens and she’s there. Her face is pale, and her long blond hair is uncombed, and the yellow hoodie she’s wearing needs washing, especially around the cuffs, which are smudged gray. But she’s there, and my eyes fill with relief.
I give her a quick hug, knowing a lingering one is more likely to trigger tears. Peter wraps his arms around her, kisses the top of her head, and says, “Hi Pumpkin.” No need for him to modulate his greeting for fear of Emily breaking down.
I ask Emily about my text, and she says she’s sorry, adding something about her battery running out. Then she leads us into her living room. I stop and stare. Last night, she said her apartment was “a little out of control”—but the sheer quantity of trash, along with the sharp rancid smell, is so much worse than I imagined.
When I visited a few months ago, the room had a worn but cozy look, with its nubby plaid sofa and squat pine coffee table. Now, every surface is covered with litter. Plastic-topped soft-drink cups, oil-stained pizza boxes, empty half-gallons of ice cream, crumpled bags of Cheetos, and torn candy wrappers. There are also piles of rumpled clothes—whether clean or dirty, I can’t tell. And Emily’s comforter and pillow are squashed together on the sofa, the once white comforter spotted with stains and tinged with orange Cheeto dust.
“Oh, honey,” I say. Emily’s always been messy, but this is beyond mess. And, though she’s struggled with overeating for years, this lost-weekend-style food binge simultaneously shocks and grieves me.
She breaks down weeping then, and I take her in my arms, hug her fiercely. There’s something about Emily’s crying that always tears at my heart. It’s almost as if the weeping causes her more pain instead of releasing it. Once, when she was seven, she locked herself wailing in her room. Hours went by as I pleaded with her to let me in. Peter was on duty that night, working in the ICU. So, I sat alone on the floor on the other side of her door, listening to her, and talking to her, until finally, she opened it.
Behind Emily, Peter stands surveying the room. His brows are furrowed, but I can’t tell if he’s upset about the state Emily’s in, the mess in her apartment, or the fact that this is not turning out to be just a quick stop. Or maybe he’s just tired, as he so often is these days. Whichever it is, I’ll deal with him later. Right now, I need to take care of my daughter. After a few minutes, her sobbing slows, her breath evens, and I feel her body pull away.
“The first thing we need to do,” I say, “is get this place picked up.”
Peter’s eyes lock on mine. His mouth is a thin flat line. He sees only an apartment in need of cleaning. I see a child in need of saving.
“I really don’t think it will take that long,” I tell him.
All he says is, “Our dinner reservations are for 7:30.”
A bit of a challenge, but even if we miss the reservation, East Chatham must have more than one restaurant.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Emily is low on trash bags, and Peter offers to go out for more, but I suggest Emily do it. If I can get her to shower and change out of her stained sweatshirt and worn leggings, it will be a step in the right direction. When she heads for the bathroom, Peter and I get to work.
I position myself in front of the sofa facing the field of soda cups on the coffee table. Peter kneels on the carpet. He grabs pizza boxes and shoves them in a bag, stuffing it full, then jams in a few more. For a while, the only sounds are the pop of plastic tops coming off cups, the trickle of old soda being poured, and the scrunching, ripping, and smashing of cardboard.
Emily comes back into the room, her hair still damp from the shower, and I give her money. In the silence that follows her departure, I can practically hear Peter’s anger building.
“What did you want me to do?” I say. “Pretend everything was fine, then give her a quick hug and take off?”
“Of course not.” He jams another pizza box in the bag.
“What then?”
“Maybe ask if she’s called her therapist.”
“She’s between therapists.”
“Between therapists?”
“She didn’t think the last one was working for her.”
“What else is new? How many does that make?”
“I don’t know.” I look away. “A lot.”
“Isn’t that how we should be helping her? By encouraging her to get back into therapy?”
“I have been. It’s not that easy to find a good one.”
“Especially when your mother is willing to be your therapist.”
“You make it sound like she’s using me.”
“Isn’t she?”
“You don’t understand. You’re not the one she calls. It’s easy for you to walk away.”
“You think it’s easy for me? You think this,” he looks around the living room, “doesn’t break my heart? But how many times are we supposed to cancel our plans because she can’t manage to stick with a therapist longer than two months?”
I straighten up, arch my back, and massage the area around my waist. “Look, as long as we get to the hotel tonight, we won’t miss any of the marriage program.”
Peter stands, a stuffed trash bag in each hand. He clenches and unclenches the muscles in his jaw, the way he always does when he is weighing how much of his anger to let out. When he finally speaks, it’s in a voice that would sound calm to anyone else.
“It would be nice not to be exhausted before it even begins.”
I understand his frustration. He isn’t the only one not in the mood for cleaning up crap. But if this is what we have to do to prevent Emily from spiraling who knows how far out of control, then we just have to do it. I’ve seen her like this before. So many times, she’s teetered on the verge of failure, danced on the edge of hopelessness, come this close to flunking out, losing out. If I catch her before it’s unfixable, I can walk her back from that edge. I don’t know how far she might fall if I can’t. And I don’t want to find out.
“It won’t take long,” I say again. “If it gets late, I can drive, and you can sleep in the car.”
“You hate night driving.”
“I can do it.”
“Not safely.”
“Would you rather stay in this area tonight and drive up early tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” He stares at me. “Sure, let’s just stay in some random roadside motel instead of the suite with the jacuzzi tub I reserved at the Cove Haven Resort.”
I sigh. “Could you not be sarcastic? I promise we’ll get on the road soon.”
“Will we?” Peter swings a trash bag over each shoulder and hunches so that his back bears the weight of them. “Can I ask you one question? When is she going to start taking responsibility for her own life so we can live ours?”
“Live ours? That’s funny coming from you.”
“What does that mean?”
“Who always ran off to the ski slopes the minute he had time off? Which of us stayed home because Emily couldn’t miss school? You always managed to find time to do the things you wanted to do, while I was left to do the shit work. This may be the first time you actually have had to help to clean up the mess.”
Peter’s eyes go flat. “Staying back was your choice. We could have gotten your parents to stay with her.”
“We tried that, remember? She had a total meltdown, and my parents didn’t know what to do. Plus, no homework got done the whole time we were gone. It took forever to get her caught up.”
“We only tried once. We could have tried again. Maybe it would have been different.”
“Maybe isn’t good enough.”
“Nothing’s ever good enough.”
“Look, we just need to clean this place up.”
“This weekend was supposed to be about us.”
“Shh,” I say. “I hear her coming.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I leave the two of them to finish in the living room while I start on the kitchen. There are plates piled in the sink, crusted-over pots and pans on the stove, and empty food containers lining the countertops. I squirt soap on the dirty dishes and get to work on the stove. It’s an old range, with a porcelain top, so I can’t use steel wool but have to make do with a sponge. I scrub at the stains, unidentifiable burnt bits of black, brown, and orange, with ferocious energy.
How dare Peter whine about not having a life? What does he call what he’s been doing for the last thirty years? Okay, the Covid years have been terrible. And, granted, he’s always put in long hours at the hospital. So, it’s not entirely his fault that the brunt of child-raising and housekeeping fell on me. But which of us had to meet every year with the staff at Emily’s elementary, middle, and high schools to negotiate her learning plans? Which of us had to micro-manage her schoolwork all those years? And deal with her meltdowns? And find her therapists? And get her to therapy appointments even when I had to take time off from my dental hygienist job? Which of us skirted perilously close to having an affair, maybe even went ahead and had one? I still don’t feel like I know for sure, despite Peter telling the marriage counselor that it was a strictly platonic relationship.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
After a few hours, the apartment starts to shape up. Emily’s face gets a little color in it, and the defeated look disappears from her eyes. Now, all I need to do is talk to her, figure out exactly what’s going on, and help her get her head together. It’s nearly six pm and East Chatham is still three hours away, meaning our dinner reservation is out, but there’s still plenty of time to get to Cove Haven Resort. So, I ask Emily to help me in her bedroom, where she and I can speak privately.
The mess here is more typical of her habits: an unmade bed, sheets that could use washing, and clothes strewn about the floor. Emily pulls a clean set of linens from a high shelf in her closet, and I help her make up the bed. When we’re done, I take a seat on her comforter. She sinks down beside me.
I heard most of the story last night, but now she fills in the gaps. She missed one day of work because she wasn’t feeling well, and then she was so anxious about the work she would have to make up that she didn’t make it in the next day either. After that, she became afraid she would be fired. So, she kept not going in until she’d missed a whole week. The longer she stayed away, the more she feared losing her job.
“Oh, honey,” I say.
There’s no sense pointing out to her how counter-productive her behavior is. She’s not stupid. And it’s not like we haven’t been down this road before. The last time she got fired from a job, it was a disaster. She called daily and wept for hours. One night, she worked herself into such a state of hysteria, I jumped into my car and drove four hours to her apartment; my promise that I was on my way seemed like the only thing that worked to calm her down. Another time, I got scared when she didn’t answer her phone, so I called 911. The police banged on her door until she opened it. Turned out she’d just been taking a nap and put her phone on silent. I know I overreacted. But what if I hadn’t called and it had turned out that calling would have saved her life? What if my parents had called 911 instead of assuming my sister was sleeping?
Tears begin rolling down Emily’s cheeks, and I put my arms around her and pull her close to my chest, her head just beneath my chin. There’s a certain relief in speaking one’s fears out loud, and her crying now isn’t the same wild sobbing and wailing from last night—nor does she keep it up for long.
I take her hands in mine and look in her eyes. I tell her I know her fear of being fired is real. Paralyzingly real. But if she goes back to work, no, when she goes back to work, she will be taking the first step toward not letting fear rule her life.
Her chin trembles, but she nods, and I hug her one more time. By the time we leave her room, it’s nearly 7 p.m., and Peter is on the phone with Cove Haven.
“That’s right,” he says. “I’m canceling tonight’s reservation.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
We’re all starving, so we take a break for dinner. Emily suggests a Thai restaurant on Main Street close to campus. When we arrive, there are no free tables, so the three of us flatten ourselves against the wall in the entry and wait. We are an island of quiet, looking out on a noisy sea of students. The clamor of their conversation mingles with the clink of silverware against dishes.
Nearby, a party of four college girls occupies a small, square table, and one of them, her elfin face at odds with her severely cut ruby bangs, is telling a story. The other three sit with their fresh, open faces turned towards her. From time to time, they all burst into laughter. The sound of which fills me with both envy and despair. What did the parents of these girls do right? What did I do wrong?
After we’re seated, Peter asks Emily what she recommends, but she tells him it’s her first time here. We eat quickly and discuss Thai food versus Chinese, the coming end of daylight savings time, and how warm the weather has been for the end of October. While Emily and I use the bathroom, Peter reserves a room for the night at Motel 6.
After dinner, we go back to the apartment and pick up where we left off with the cleaning. I help Emily put away the kitchenware I washed earlier, and Peter hauls overfilled trash bags to the curb. It’s nearly 10 pm by the time we kiss Emily goodnight and head out the door.
Peter pulls up to the motel office, and I wait in the car with the motor running while he goes inside to check us in. Sitting in the dark, I think about all the times our plans had to be changed because of Emily – the Disneyland trip we aborted because of her meltdowns, the friend’s 50th we missed because of her SAT exam freak-out. I finger my cell phone and will it not to ring.
When Peter returns, he drives around to the side of the building and parks. He turns off the engine and we sit in the dark with only our faces illuminated by the harsh white glare of our room’s welcome light. Neither of us makes a move to get out.
“This isn’t working,” Peter says.
“This?”
“Coming to her rescue. Solving her problems. We can’t keep doing it.”
I take a deep breath. I do not want to get angry. “Well, it’s not usually we, it’s usually me. And how would you suggest we handle things?”
“By not handling things for her. By making her do it.”
“And if she doesn’t? If she spirals out of control?”
He turns towards me. Now, only one side of his face is illuminated, the other in shadow. “She’s not your sister,” he says, his voice weary. “She’s never threatened, never even hinted at suicide.”
“Not everything’s predictable.”
“And not everything’s preventable.”
“We still have to try.”
“And what about you and me? I’ll be retiring soon. Don’t you want to travel? Don’t you want to be able to make plans? What about us?”
“This isn’t about us,” I say. “It’s about our daughter.”
“It affects us.”
“Don’t let it.”
“I don’t intend to,” he says. “Not anymore.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
While Peter hauls our suitcases from the trunk of the car, I use the keycard to let us into the room. There’s only one sink in the bathroom, and I tell Peter to use it first.
I go to the window to close the curtains and pull the wands until they meet. But the minute I let go, the curtains part and a sliver of light shines through. I grasp the material and close the gap. I let the curtains go, they slop apart. I overlap them. They spring away. I press them against each other. They jump back. What the hell? Is it impossible for one small part of this day to go smoothly? What’s the point of having curtains if they don’t stay together? What’s the point if, whatever you do, light streams between them? What’s the use of making them in pairs if there’s no way to keep the two halves together?
Peter comes out, and I go in. By the time I’m finished, he’s already in bed, lying on his back with his arms crossed behind his head. I plug my charger into a wall outlet and place my cell phone on my night table. Then I get into bed too and lie on my back next to him.
“You know,” he says, looking up at the ceiling, “when we first planned this weekend, I was really excited. I thought we could get to the hotel the night before and have a romantic dinner. Maybe use the hot tub afterwards.” His voice trails off.
The resentments I nurture, some petty, some not, do not simply melt away as I listen to him. But he has thought about this weekend. He wants it to succeed. He wants us to succeed. A lump grows in my throat. I want this weekend to succeed, too. I think I was afraid to admit to myself how much.
I turn my head to look at him. “I’m really sorry for the way things worked out today.”
“I know.”
“We still have tomorrow and Sunday.”
He turns to look at me. “And if Emily calls crying again?”
I want to tell him not to worry. That she won’t call. Or that if she does, it won’t interfere with our weekend. But I can’t promise either of those things, no matter how much I wish I could.
And, after a minute, Peter turns on his side with his back to me, which is the way he always sleeps. I fit myself against him and slip my arm under his. I put my hand on his chest. He curls his hand around it.
“Do you remember what I told you when Emily was born?” he says.
I’ve never forgotten it. Emily’s birth was long and difficult. Hour after hour, Peter sat by my side holding my hand and saying everything he could think of to keep me going. Finally, I pushed Emily out, and the doctor gave her to the nurse who whisked her to some other part of the room to be cleaned up, weighed, and Apgar tested. I expected Peter to follow them to get his first glimpse of our new daughter, but he stayed right where he was.
“Don’t you want to see the baby?” I asked.
He shook his head. He was still holding my hand, and he clasped it tightly—like we were a team claiming victory.
“They’ll bring her over in a minute,” he said. “We’ll see her together. We were together before she came along. And we’ll be together after she’s all grown up.”
At the time, his staying with me, even more than his words, was a statement of commitment more powerful than his marriage proposal or our wedding vows.
I know now how naïve we were. We had no idea about the millions of completely unpredictable ways a child can impact a marriage. And yet, it must mean something that just knowing we are both remembering this moment, that only we can remember, creates a warm space inside me. I feel Peter’s back, solid and safe against my breasts and my belly. I wait until he is breathing deeply and regularly, then disentangle myself from him and kiss him gently on the neck before I roll onto my usual side.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
In the morning, I wake before the alarm goes off and check my phone. There are no missed calls or unread texts. Peter is sleeping, so I go in the bathroom to take the first shower. When I come back into the room fully dressed, he sits up.
“You’re all ready,” he says.
“I didn’t want to keep you waiting.”
While Peter showers, I fit my overnight stuff back into my suitcase and look for something to take my mind off Emily. I settle for reading news on my phone.
After a while, Peter says he’s ready to go. He checks the bathroom and I scan the nightstands to make sure we haven’t forgotten anything. And then, just as he comes back into the room, my cell phone rings. His eyes catch mine. We both know who it is.
“Hello?” I say.
She is sobbing.
I sink onto the foot of the bed and listen to her cry.
Peter stands across from me with his back to the dresser. He folds his arms over his chest and stares at the floor.
My heart starts to pound. My chest is so tight it’s like a straitjacket. The more I struggle, the tighter it gets. There is no way to know what the right decision is.
Peter looks up at me, and our eyes lock.
Hillary Adrienne Stern is a fiction writer living in Bethesda, Maryland. She holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her debut novel, The Garment Maker’s Daughter, was selected as an editor’s choice by the Historical Novel Society.
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