It was nearly midnight when the Burlington Trailways charter bus pulled into the parking lot of the Central Illinois State University Athletic Center. The broad illumination from the area lights showcased an early March mist. The four-plus hours' drive back to the university from Kansas City had been a quiet one. The last trip of an unremarkable season. As the bus rolled up in front of the athletic building, its interior lights flickered on.

Dugan made a beeline for his office. Instead of taking the long corridor around the building, he opted for the shortcut across Crawford Court. The cavernous arena was dark except for the floodlights pointing to the three championship banners hanging from the rafters. Two Midwest 8 Conference championships and a legacy Regional Championship, all over twenty years old. The women’s team banners hung from the other side of the gym. Too many conference championships, NCAA appearances, retired jersey numbers, to count. Coach Crawford, the women’s coach, had been at CISU for over ten years. Still active, but she was already a legend.

After exiting the court, Dugan headed down the dark hallway toward his office. When he passed the athletic director’s office, a wave of nausea swept over him. After tonight’s game, the AD had stopped in the locker room and asked to see Dugan in his office first thing Monday morning.

Dugan took a seat at his desk, feeling empty. Things at CISU were looking grim. Just after laying his head down on his crossed arms, his phone pinged. It was his daughter, Megan. She asked him how he was doing. She certainly had watched the game online or at least followed the score on one of the sports apps. Doing ok, he typed. Relieved the season is over. Why don’t you come up for a visit, her next text read. I’d like that. I’ll do that after my meeting with the AD on Monday. She replied with a question mark. He’s either congratulating me on another losing season, or I’m fired. Stay positive, she replied. Good night. He dropped a heart emoji and put his head back down on the desk.

***

On Monday morning, Dugan peeked through the pane of glass, framing the door to the athletic director’s office. The large desk at the back of the office was empty. He read the nameplate to ensure he was at the right door. Dick Rucker. Athletic Director. His eyes narrowed to Rucker’s slogan engraved beneath his name and title - Results Focused. Five and twenty-three pulsated against Dugan’s skull. His heart sank into his abdomen. Five wins, no matter how you spun it, didn’t spell positive results. He took a deep, desperate breath before cracking the office door open. Rucker was in the back corner of his office admiring one of his trophy cases. He held a weighty trophy, rubbing a microfiber dust cloth over the topper chrome basketball. Turning to face Dugan, he raised the trophy.

“This was Crawford’s first conference championship. Midwest 8 Women’s Conference Champions. 2015. Her second year on the job. Where were you that year, coach?”

For a moment, Dugan’s mind clutched. Where had he been in 2015? Numerous brief positions chased through his head like digital ticker tape.

“I was still at Norris High School. The year after our state title,” he eventually responded.

“State title. That must have been an exciting year. One of the reasons we hired you. We thought you had it in you and could win at this level. We took a chance on you. You’re a cerebral coach, Dugan. Great with Xs and Os, but sadly not much of a motivator.”

Dugan followed Rucker to his mahogany desk. The wall behind the desk was peppered with certificates and photos of seasons’ past. AD Rucker sank into his plush captain’s chair and asked Dugan to take a seat across from him.

“Thanks for coming this morning, coach. I know it’s been a disappointing season,” the AD began. Dugan nodded. “We’ve given you a solid chance. I support you. But it’s more than me. You understand how it works, coach. The alumni. The boosters. They’re impatient. There’s pressure to win.”  

“I get it,” Dugan said. “These first two years have not been great.”

“Great? Well, frankly, I’d say failures. The absolute numbers are terrible, but the bigger problem is the comparison. It’s a relative thing. Crawford went twenty-six and four this year. Another NCAA tournament bid.”

“She’s had a great run. Truly a remarkable success. I’m still in the process of establishing solid recruiting pipelines.”

“I haven’t seen any blue-chip commits.”

“With all due respect, AD, we’re CISU. We can’t compete for blue-chip players.”

“True enough, but at least a diamond in the rough. A kid off the radar. Potential that can be identified and cultivated.”

“That kind of thing is rare. Jeff Hornacek. Scottie Pippen. The numbers are slim.”

“All programs aspire to win. There’s no D1 program with a tolerance for losing, coach. This is difficult, and there’s no easy way to say this. I must let you go. It’s out of my hands We’ve given you time to get this program right, or at least to move the needle, and you’ve come up short.”

Dugan tuned out the remainder of the conversation. What he acknowledged was that he was no longer employed. The AD’s decision was not unexpected, but still he felt a debilitating sting.

He texted his daughter to let her know the news. A few minutes later, his phone pinged. He eyed the text. Assholes. Ditch those dickheads and come up for a visit. I’m sorry. A crying emoji followed. He responded that he would drive up in a couple of days.

***

Rather than getting coffee at his usual café, Dugan grabbed a cup at a rest stop outside of town. Less chance of being recognized. The coffee wasn’t great, but the drive was going well, almost relaxing as he neared Champaign. He continued north on Interstate 57 and eventually the sky transformed into a winter sky. It began to snow. At first light, fluffy flakes. Picturesque, with the Subaru traveling briskly through a snow globe. When he was about twenty miles south of Kankakee, the weather changed. Visibility diminished, and snow swirled and drifted across the highway. Taillights were not visible until he was only a few feet from the car ahead of him. Eyes squinting, the road vanished beneath him, lost to blowing and drifting snow. It became a total whiteout.

After a couple of white-knuckle miles, he saw a neon pink vacancy sign blinking like a guidepost. The Iroquois Motel was L-shaped, a low rise one story with rooms facing the parking lot. Inside the lobby, a woman came around from behind the glass in the back office. Neatly printed on a pin on her blouse was her name - Marilyn.

“Winter is giving one last gasp,” she said as she made her way to the counter.

“I had to pull off. Plows can’t keep up and visibility is next to nothing.”

“I gather you’re headed north.”

“I am. Heading to Chicago.” She didn’t comment. “I need to get out of the storm until it breaks.”

“Would you like to book a room? We may fill up with the storm.” Dugan hadn’t planned on staying. He had hoped just to pull over, maybe sit inside for a couple hours until the storm eased, and the IDOT plow crews had time to catch up.

“I suppose I can’t just sit in here for a while,” he said, testing her.

“You can, but you’ll risk the place getting full and no telling when the snow stops. These early March storms can dump a lot of it.”

Dugan glanced through the window of the lobby. Heavy snow continued to fall with no letup in sight. Rather than turn around and head back south, he decided it was best to book a room. He texted his daughter.

“You’re in room five,” Marilyn said when she returned to the counter, handing him his key. “If you can get through the snow, you can park right in front of the door. George won’t be out to plow until morning. He’s detained over in Pontiac, so he says.”

Snow was piling up against the motel doors, swirling along the corridor like a supersonic wind tunnel. Inside the room, a small window on the back wall faced an empty field. The neighboring farmhouse was two football fields away. The flatland in between was buried in snow. He felt like a fugitive. He had a strange urge to weep but he didn’t. If his memory was accurate tears had only fallen as a kid when his dog, Amber, died, and maybe a few when he and Beverly had divorced, and when Megan was born, but those were different kinds of tears. The sentiment was quickly replaced by a sensation of drifting, like the snow scurrying across the pavement out on I-57.

Late in the afternoon, his room began to darken. Through the window he could see a purplish hue splashed against the distant horizon, devouring the farmhouse. For a time, he watched the snowfall. The natural world embodied both chaos and order. Both uniformity and adaptation. He had read that someplace and here it was, right in front of him. He couldn’t recall the last time he had considered nature. Falling snow was just something he drove through on his way to and from the athletic building. Or neglected in a white flurry snared in the headlight beams of a charter bus destined for a game in Iowa or Indiana.

Eventually he was hungry and ventured back to the office. Marilyn peered over her reading glasses, looking up from the computer. Dugan asked if there was anything to eat nearby. A diner. Carryout. Anything. Marilyn informed him that he had managed to stop at the most remote motel on I-57. Besides, the TV weather people advised against driving. It wasn’t much, she said, but she had a couple of frozen dinners in the fridge in the back office and a new microwave she had purchased on sale at Costco a couple of weeks ago. The previous one, which was tiny and at least ten years old, had gone, as Marilyn explained, on the fritz.

“Care to join me?” With no other options, and his stomach gurgling, Dugan agreed. It turned out his room was the only one occupied. So much for the storm attracting business.

“Lasagna or chicken alfredo?” Marilyn called from the back room.

“Lasagna,” Dugan responded back, watching her opening the boxes and placing the frozen dinners in the microwave. After about ten minutes on high power, she returned to the front room with steaming dinners in their plastic containers resting on two mismatched plates. She asked Dugan to bring one of the high stools around to his side of the counter.

Marilyn revealed how she had experienced her share of setbacks in life. Maybe he had noticed the large farmhouse in the distance behind the motel. It once belonged to the family. The land had been theirs too before being gobbled up by industrial agriculture. Dugan shared the summary of his recent termination.

“Spring will set you right. Like every year, we’ll collectively relearn it’s not all gloom and darkness. The robins and warblers will be back in numbers, and the daffodils will appear. Before long they’ll be rows of soybeans.” 

“Do you own this place?”

“It’s been in the family for a long time. The one thing we still have. From that back window I can look out over the land that used to be ours and the house I grew up in. Lots of good memories but sometimes it feels like they belong to someone else.” They talked more about their youth, their minor victories, and setbacks. Changing weather patterns. Midwest anthems. Mostly they talked about the joys of daughters.

Dugan left the office in the early evening. The porch near the office was clear of snow, blown clean by the wind tunnel. He sat on a metal patio chair. The snow and blowing wind had stopped. A bright moon cast a shiny veneer over the flatland. A quiet and stillness he had not experienced for a long time washed over him. He watched several planes fly over. North to Chicago or Minneapolis. South to Houston or New Orleans. The winking vacancy sign shed a rhythmic pink pulse against the building.

In the morning, Dugan was woken by the sounds of an engine and a vehicle’s backup alarms. Yellow lights flashing against the motel room’s wood paneling. A heavy steel plow dropping, slamming the asphalt with a metallic concussion. At the front window, he peeked around the curtain panel. The snowplow worked its way across the far end of the lot. When it turned to make its way back, George’s Towing with a phone number printed below it was visible on the driver’s side door. The familiar sound of scraping metal against asphalt filled the Iroquois Motel parking lot as snow was pushed and cleared.

Dugan gathered his things and stopped at the motel office. Marilyn was gone. Her replacement had arrived an hour ago from Joliet. He described the numerous stranded cars he had seen on the drive over. Wreckers were all up and down US 52 pulling vehicles out of ditches. Had he tried to make it last night, he would have been one of them. Dugan’s attention drifted, disappointed he had missed Marilyn.

Thanks to George, the Subaru was fenced in by two feet of snow on all sides. Dugan slipped the gear into reverse, punched the gas, and managed to back out and resume his northward trek. It was cold on the heels of the large snowstorm, and the sky was clear blue, magnificent, with sunlight shimmering off the fresh snow. Near Peotone he stopped for breakfast at a diner where he ordered black coffee, eggs over easy, rye toast, and a couple of strips of bacon.

Before long he was back on the road and eventually the Chicago skyline came into view. Mercifully, he cruised into a sea of concrete and humanity, embraced by anonymity, passing neon signs and parking lots, bars, record shops, and thrift stores. He drove north along Lake Michigan until he arrived at Megan’s apartment building on Belmont Avenue. He parked on an unplowed side street and folded the mirror on the driver’s side door. Save it from being clipped by a careless driver or an adrenaline filled snowplow operator. After wading through deep snow, he made it to the clear sidewalk thanks to the building’s property management. Megan’s apartment was on the eighteenth floor. Standing in front of the imposing building, shading his eyes from the glaring sunlight, he began to count the floors but abandoned the notion at level seven. After glancing around for the daffodils that he knew were not there, he made his way into the building lobby where he waited for the elevator.