I am stuck between selves. Right now, I am no one.

I am also stuck, literally, in the mud, the wheels of my janky hatchback spinning in fruitless circles as they work themselves deeper into the earth. I should have known better than to drive up this particular road in this particular car at this particular time of year, but I forgot. It has been a while since I visited my father’s house. More than a while. It has been nine years.

As I rev the engine, I recall his classic refrain: “If you visit during mud season, you must really mean it.” In this area of New York—way upstate, farther than most urbanites are willing to go nowadays—there is this murky fifth season that falls between winter and spring, when everything is brown and dense, when the dirt roads turn soft and unruly as they thaw inch by stubborn inch. The other four seasons have their obvious charms, but mud season is a slog, palatable only to the locals and navigable only with the deepest of treads. My treads are inadequate, and I haven’t been a local for a long time, which is probably why my five-hour journey has reached a premature conclusion here, a mile short of the house, where the cracked asphalt yields to dirt (or in this instance, sludge). I climb out of the car and wave my phone skyward, trying to get a signal so I can ask my older sister, Nina, to come fetch me in her sturdy Subaru. But again, I should know better—this section of woods is especially dense, and there is no hope of cell service. As the sun starts to dip behind the pines, I realize I’ll have to start walking if I want to get to the house before dark. This would not normally be a problem—except my suitcase is on wheels.