Chapter 4: The Motel With Two Keys
The parking lot off the highway was half empty and puddled with rain from earlier. I pulled into a space under a buzzing light and put the car in park and just sat there for a second with both hands on the wheel. My daughter was asleep against the booster seat, her cheek mashed into the teddy bear. My son stared out the window at the low motel building with the vending machines glowing by the office.
I'd driven without a reservation. That had been part of the plan, not to have a trail he could call ahead to. My phone had two missed calls from Grant and then nothing, which was worse. I didn't check them. I turned the car off and my back seized when I tried to shift my weight to open the door. Eight months pregnant and I'd lifted two suitcases into the trunk and I'd held myself straight through that entire dinner and now my body was keeping score.
"Are we sleeping here, Mom?" my son asked. His voice was small.
"Just for tonight," I said. "Just for tonight while we figure the next part out."
The office smelled like coffee and cleaner. The clerk was a woman in her fifties with a name tag that said Linda. She didn't look up with pity when she saw me, pregnant, two kids hovering by the doorway, no husband. She just slid the clipboard over.
"One night?" she asked.
"One night," I said. "Ground floor if you have it."
I paid with the card I'd kept separate for the last four months. It was the one tied to my own checking account from before the marriage, the one I'd funneled the small freelance deposits into and never mentioned. Grant had his card for the house, and I had this one. It wasn't much, but it cleared. Linda handed me two plastic keys.
"Room twelve. Ice machine's loud, sorry about that."
My son pulled one of the suitcases. It wobbled on its wheels over the cracked sidewalk and he had to use both hands. My daughter walked right against my leg, her bear bumping my cream dress which was now wrinkled at the hem. The room was plain in a way that felt like relief after that dining room. Two double beds with cheap white spreads, a dark carpet, a bathroom with bright light.
I set the suitcases down and my lower back gave out in a sharp, dull ache that went around to the front. I had to brace a hand on the dresser and breathe through it. Braxton Hicks, my doctor had called them. They came harder when I was stressed or dehydrated or on my feet too long. I'd had them all through the drive.
"Can you guys sit on the bed for me?" I said, keeping my voice even. "I need a minute."
My son helped his sister up. She curled immediately into the pillows with her bear tucked under her chin, the way she always did. Her eyes were already heavy.
We hadn't eaten since the lunch I'd packed that morning. I hadn't been able to get food on the table before Grant made his announcement. There was a gas station across the street and a microwave in the room. I found three dollars in cash in the side pocket of the suitcase and handed it to my son.
"Do you think you can go with me to get some crackers and water? We'll leave your sister for exactly two minutes and lock the door, okay?"
He nodded like it was a job. We crossed the lot together, his hand tight in mine. In the fluorescent aisle I grabbed peanut butter crackers, a gallon of water, a banana, a small carton of milk. My feet throbbed in my shoes. By the time we got back my daughter had fallen sideways, still clutching the bear, her breathing slow.
I woke her enough to get the crackers into her. We sat on the edge of the bed, all three of us, eating dry crackers out of the plastic sleeves. No plates, no gold chargers. My son broke his cracker in half and gave the bigger half to his sister.
"Is Dad coming?" he asked quietly.
"Not tonight," I said. "Tonight it's just us."
After they brushed their teeth with the little motel cups, I did the routine exactly like home so the room would stop feeling strange. I pulled their pajamas from the top of the suitcase — I had packed them right on top, I'd remembered — and shook them out. My daughter's pink set, my son's blue one. I helped her change while she stood on the bed, her bear propped against the pillow so she could see it.
"Bear needs to brush his teeth too," she whispered.
"He does," I said and pretended to brush the bear's little stitched mouth. She gave a tired laugh and that sound was the first thing that had felt normal all night.
I tucked them both into the same bed because they wanted to be together. My son curled on the outside like a guard. My daughter tucked the bear between them. I sat on the edge and rubbed their backs, one hand each, until their breathing evened out. The ice machine down the walk thumped and hummed.
When I stood, the ache came back harder. A tightening across my belly that made me catch the headboard. I lowered myself slowly to the other bed and lay on my side and just breathed, counting the way the nurse had taught me. Four in, six out. My ankles had swollen over the strap of my shoe. The suitcases sat open on the floor, only the pajamas and toothbrushes taken out. Everything else was still packed, waiting for a decision I didn't have yet.
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The phone was on the nightstand, face down. In the morning I would have to call the lawyer. I would have to find a place where two kids and a woman about to give birth could actually live, not just hide for a night that a separate card could pay for. Composure had gotten us out of that dining room and into this room with the door locked. It wasn't going to pay for next week. It wasn't going to stop my body from needing to rest.
I stayed awake long after they were asleep, listening to the highway and the ice machine, one hand on my belly, watching the two keys on the dresser and the two suitcases on the floor, understanding for the first time that night how thin the line was between leaving and having somewhere to go.
