Stone Mattress

“Alphinland” introduces Constance Starr, a widow who talks to her dead husband, Ewan, as she does her best to ride out a winter storm. Constance lives alone now that Ewan is dead. While her grown sons push for her to downsize and move closer to them, Constance does not want to leave the house she’s shared with her husband, with whom she still communicates. Constance knows that her husband is dead and believes her hallucinations are normal for someone grieving for a lost loved one.

Despite the storm, Constance makes her way to a corner store and back because she needs salt. The store is sold out of salt so, at Ewan’s suggestion, she buys kitty litter and spreads it outside the house over the ice. Once back inside, Constance starts to think about Alphinland, a series of fantasy books she wrote to support her and Gavin, an old boyfriend she lived with at the time. The couple could not afford to live on Gavin’s nonexistent poet salary. Much to Gavin’s dismay, Constance’s books became bestsellers. Looking back at that time in her life, Constance thinks, “Girls did that then—knocked themselves out to support some man’s notion of his own genius” (23).

Constance and Gavin broke up when she walked in on him cheating on her; later, Constance married Ewan. She kept writing her fantasy books, as Alphinland is more than just a money-maker for Constance. It provides Constance with an alternate reality she can escape to when she doesn’t want to deal with the real world. This world allows her to keep Gavin prisoner, out of sight and out of mind, and when Constance believes that Ewan has left her to go to Alphinland, she has no choice but to follow him through Alphinland’s gate.