The first time she saw a dead body, Kate was crossing the bridge into Wenatchee. The man lay on the steep bank, face down, naked, his skin a startling white in the yellow dust. An ambulance was parked on the shoulder, and the attendants leaned against it, smoking. Kate could hear loud hard-rock music coming from the car radio of a couple who, like her, had slowed down for a look. She wondered who that man was and why he was naked. It seemed symbolic, somehow, as if he had just been reborn and would, at any moment, lift his head, put on his clothes and begin a new life. this made her think of Lethe, the mythological river of oblivion where, before rebirth, the dead drink to forget their former lives and sins. Had the dead man purposely thrown himself into this river? She was able to ponder this because the man was unknown to her and because Kate, too, was a stranger, a visitor passing through on her way to Pateros where her new husband waited.

She is reminded of the dead man now, two years later, as she crosses a different bridge, the interface between her present and her past which, try as she might, she has not forgotten.

She is here in Twisp, Washington, that godforsaken, end-of-the-highway-in-winter town where her father still lives, because two days ago, his second wife, Elaine, fell into the river and drowned. Finally gone. What astounds Kate -- who has waited so long for this moment, who spent years of her childhood fantasizing about it -- is that she feels nothing. Or perhaps, a small twist of guilt, as if she were somehow responsible, simply by the act of longing.

Dead stepmother. In fairytales, this is the part where the daughter rises, triumphant -- freed from wicked spells and evil potions -- to be joyously reunited with her father.

Of course, they live happily-ever-after.

 "You must go home," her aunt, Rose, said when they heard the news. "Your dad has something important to tell you."

Home. From Vancouver, a six-hour drive, Kate's foot reluctant on the gas pedal. Direction: south on I-5, east at Burlington, continue on the North Cascades Highway for two hundred miles to Twisp. Bearing: Dad, childhood. Well, here she is.

Past the bridge, she stares upstream, as if she expects to see Elaine floating, belly-up, toward her. But the river yields only the tumble of water over stones, a sound that transports her to a Mexican beach, the melancholy strings of a guitar, the trickle of a water stick turned end to end, Ray. She hasn't seen her ex-husband for a year and a half. A familiar chill begins to spread in her chest, in her head, fills all the spaces. Suspended animation.

From the outside, however, she appears composed, having learned long ago to suppress the ice storm in her veins, or at least, the knowledge that it exists, in the way a skier must suppress the awareness that an avalanche could, at any moment, bury her.

If you could watch her drive into Twisp, you would see an attractive young woman in a crisp white shirt tucked into blue jeans, with brown city boots to match her camel blazer. Her shoulder-length black hair is secured into a ponytail by a tortoise-shell barrette. She wears no makeup except lipstick -- Skin -- carefully painted inside Nude lipliner. Three years ago, she let several of her earring holes grow over, so that now she sports only two studs in each ear. She could be the star in a commercial for toothpaste, or for the girl-next-door. You would hardly notice that when she reaches the police station where her father is Chief, her breath quickens.

Remember me, Dad?

Panic attack.

She coasts past two police cars parked in front, grips the steering wheel and forces herself to inhale slowly. Count to five. Hold. Count to five. Exhale slowly. Count to five. What she really wants to do is duck under the dashboard, like someone being shot at in a movie. Instead, she stares straight ahead and drives back to the highway. Eight more miles. She reminds herself that nobody gives a damn whether she's here or not. Her stomach is fluttery, unsettled. From herpurse, she takes four antacid tablets and chews them slowly. The turmoil in her chest and abdomen begins to subside.

Had Kate's father, Joe, married someone else, Kate would have a mother.

She would probably still have grown up in Twisp along with the other children in her grade. She might have married Matt, her high-school sweetheart, or gone to university in Seattle or Spokane after graduation. She could have returned to Twisp, and be there now, with children of her own, attending townhall meetings, ardent in the fight against monster-homes and proposed condo developments, swearing to help protect the Methow Valley's fragile ecological balance. She might be wearing sensible shoes and tending a vegetable garden. During tourist season, she would probably work part-time in one of the shops or restaurants along the boardwalk in nearby Winthrop. Or she might turn her home into a bed-and-breakfast, serve homemade peach preserves on steaming muffins and tell strangers the familiar stories: the flood in 1948, before she was born, when the river rose to the deck railing; the Smokejumper's Base, with its helicopters and firefighting parachutists; how the valley once was filled with cattle ranches, orchards, sheep farms, homesteaders. She'd probably sigh, then grumble about the wealthy landowners coming in from The Coast, raising prices sky-high so the locals can't afford to own any more. She'd point to Sun Mountain and check the snow line, tell tourists they'd better head home soon, before the avalanches start up in the pass.

She would not have spent her teen years living with her aunt, Rose, in Vancouver, banished from her father's house, resentful of his new wife, Elaine. She might never have studied anthropology, or gone to work on the cruise ships, telling her brand of stories -- of extinction and survival. She might not have spent so much time waiting to be abandoned over and over again . . .