CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DANE
It’s the motel manager on the other end of the line. “Oh, Mr. Carr. I’m glad I got you. The phone lines have been down and… Well, you know.”
“I understand,” I reply, conscious of Haley sitting at the dining table.
“Do you have a minute?”
“Sure.”
“I just wanted to call and let you know the power is back on at the motel.”
“That’s good to know.”
“I thought it best I inform you in case you’d like to make… other arrangements.”
“That is, unless you’d like to stay with Ms. Walker?”
What’s he getting at here? I hate the way these folk talk in riddles, always fishing and hunting for information. “I don’t follow, sorry.”
“Well,” he pauses. I picture him licking his lips for the no doubt juicy morsel he’s about to send my way. “Word does travel in these parts.”
I don’t reply, don’t give him the satisfaction.
“I didn’t mean to offend—”
“Right. Thanks for the call.” I’m about to hang up when he continues, talking faster now he realizes money might be lost.
“I’m happy to offer you a significant discount on a room, for your troubles. Shall I reserve one for you? It’s going to be quite busy given—”
“Yeah, go ahead and book me a room.”
“Same details?”
“Yes, same details.”
“Wonderful. You have a pleasant day Mr. Carr.”
“You too.”
I hang up and notice Haley watching me.
Andy’s down to sniffles, my shirt wet at the shoulder where he’s been crying against it.
It’s then, at that precise juncture in time, I realize how attached I’ve become—to Haley, to her son.
I hand Andy over. He curls up into his mother’s arms, his thumb disappearing into his mouth. I slide my hands into my pockets. “Looks like the power’s back on at the motel. Guess I’ll finally be out of your hair.”
She’s pained as she looks from the table to me. “You aren’t ‘in my hair,’ Dane.”
There’s a strange silence as we wait for the inevitable ‘you can stay’ suggestion, but it never comes, and I don’t want to ask, to push it.
This is the right thing.
“Right,” I breathe out. “I’ll go pack.”
“Do you need to do any laundry?” Haley asks. The conversation is stale. We’re two strangers again, oceans apart.
“I’ll use the coin laundry at the motel.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” I reply, turning and heading upstairs.
I pack silently. It’s amazing how little I have, but I guess that’s life—my entire existence compressed down into a duffle bag.
I sling the bag over my shoulder. I’m wearing the same leather jacket as when I arrived, the same jeans and boots.
Haley’s waiting with Andy in her arms. Whatever she’s feeling, I can’t make any which way of it. She’s as mysterious to me then as the dark side of the moon.
I walk past her to the front door, opening it and standing in the threshold. “So, this is it.”
“I guess so.”
“It was,” I struggle to find the appropriate words, “good to meet you, and hey, thanks for putting up with my shit.”
“Sure.”
Her eyes are glassy, but I can’t tell if she’s about to burst into tears or what those tears would even mean. Even shining as they are, they’re the bright blue of the sky following a storm, a hint of gray, of rain to come.
I chew on my lip, not knowing what more there is to be said. “I’ll probably be on the bus in a couple of days when the ice clears, but I can come say goodbye if you like.”
I don’t even know why I’m suggesting it. I should be making this a clean break.
“Perhaps it’s for the best if we both move on,” says Haley. “Besides, we’ll be on a bus ourselves soon, won’t we, little man?”
Andy smiles up at her in response, his hands reaching for something unseen in the air.
I want to kiss her, but I know there’s no point prolonging this. It’s pulling off a fucking Band-Aid again—the quicker it is, the more painless it is.
“Goodbye,” I say.
“Goodbye,” she repeats, Andy babbling “Dane,” clear as a bell, just as I close the door. It’s the first time he’s said my name.
I place a hand on the front of the door and breathe in.
Don’t do it, I tell myself, caught.
I push away and turn towards the street.
One foot after the other.
That’s the way.
Soon I’m walking, with each step moving further and further away from Haley, from Andy, from whatever it could have been.
You’re a bachelor. It’s not an easy life. Hell, sometimes it’s painful. You know this, but there will be other women, other towns…
The more I try and rationalize it, the easier it becomes to swallow.
And it wouldn’t have worked. No way. With a kid? In a town like this?
Me? A family man, putting up a picket fence and making small chat with Mrs. Ainsworth?
Never.
Which is why it’s curious that I feel like I’m walking away from, not towards, happiness.