Chapter 9 - The Motel On The County Line
The gravel lot behind the motor lodge crunched under the tires as I pulled the sedan around to the back row, away from the hum of the highway traffic. Dusk was settling fast over the flat highway corridor, turning the sky a bruised purple that bled down into the flat concrete expanses and the faded neon signs of passing truck stops. In the passenger seat, my son shifted, his head lolling against the glass of the window before he blinked sleepily, his fingers automatically tugging at the zipper of his blue hoodie. He looked small and exhausted, the gray t-shirt beneath the heavy fabric creased from hours of sitting in the stale air of the car.
"Are we staying here, Mom?" he asked quietly, his voice raspy with sleep as he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Just for tonight," I said, keeping my tone level and steady, careful not to let the tremor in my chest reach my throat. "A quiet place to rest."
The room we checked into smelled faintly of old wool, floor wax, and the damp chill of the river a mile down the road. Two twin beds stood against the patterned wallpaper, covered in heavy brown spreads that had seen better decades. A single plastic-shaded lamp on the nightstand cast a pool of amber light across the worn carpet, leaving the corners of the small room in deep shadow. I locked the deadbolt and flipped the security latch into place with a sharp metallic click, then drew the heavy beige drapes closed against the headlights sweeping across the parking lot.
I helped him out of his sneakers and unzipped his hoodie, folding it neatly over the back of the straight-backed wooden chair by the desk. He climbed into the bed nearer the wall, the springs groaning softly under his weight, and pulled the scratchy blankets up to his chin. Within minutes, the steady, rhythmic sound of his breathing filled the quiet room, his body finally relaxing into the deep, untroubled sleep of a child who trusted that the walls around him were safe.
I sat on the edge of the opposite bed for a long time, listening to the muffled roar of an eighteen-wheeler shifting gears out on the highway. My hands, resting in my lap against the dark denim of my jeans, felt cold and stiff. I reached down and touched the edge of my beige knit sweater, smoothing the wool over my wrists. The silence in the room was heavy, pressing against my ears with the weight of every unvoiced fear, every mile we had put between ourselves and the house with its tiled entryway and framed wall art.
May you like
Standing up slowly so as not to disturb the quiet, I walked over to the narrow window and pulled the edge of the drape back an inch. Outside, the sodium vapor lights cast a sickly orange glow over the asphalt and the row of parked cars. Across the highway, the silhouette of a diner sign blinked lazily against the dark sky. We were hidden here, tucked away in the anonymous clutter of the county line, yet I could not shake the feeling that the distance we had traveled was only an illusion. Every shadow in the parking lot seemed to stretch toward our door, and the hum of the night traffic felt less like freedom and more like a countdown to morning. I let the curtain fall back into place, turned off the harsh overhead light, and sat down in the dim amber glow of the bedside lamp to watch the hours pass.
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