Deep Enough

This story was originally published in Day One, a weekly literary journal dedicated to short fiction and poetry from emerging writers.

Eileen, struggling in the wake of her husband’s death, moves from Boston to an isolated stretch of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Haunted by the future she and Avery didn’t have a chance to build, she looks for distraction through encounters with anonymous men she meets online. But it’s her gruff, taciturn neighbor, Doyle—who recently lost his wife as well—who Eileen feels might be able to understand what she’s going through.

Unlike her, however, Doyle is not open to addressing his pain, and the two circle their grief and the uncertain nature of their relationship. That is, until Eileen crosses a line that threatens to ruin everything.

Honest and vivid, Deep Enough speaks to the strange forms that mourning sometimes takes, and how pain can transform our sense of self and the world around us.