Endings. Barbara Bergin
else you can think of?”
She pulled the handle on the door and stepped out, the ankle still there. “Thanks for your help. G’night.” The car pulled away and she stood alone in the portico of the hotel.
Abilene, Texas. There was a wonderful smell in the air. Clean, west Texas air after a rainstorm. Some combination of ozone and miles of dusty roads soaking up the long awaited rain. She breathed it in deep.
That smell was something her mom defined for her when she was a kid. When it would start to rain they would go outside to smell the air. If they were driving, they would open the vents to let it fill the car. She, in turn taught her kids to love it too. “Turn on the vent, mom! Let’s smell the rain!” The longer the drought, the better the smell. The air from the vent would be steamy and fog up the window. She took a big breath and was smiling when the automatic doors opened and she walked into the lobby.
2
“Mrs. Cohen, right?” A thin, very dark, East Indian man was standing behind the counter.
“Yes, how did you know?”
“We do not have many people checking in tonight. You are the only woman, so I figured it was you.” He smiled and said in a pleasant lilting accent, “You’re going to be with us for a very long time, I see. You know your account has been covered and the only thing you will be responsible for is your long distance calls, laundry and any movies you might order. Is this your understanding?”
“Uh huh,” she replied absently. She handed him her credit card, he struck a copy and filed it.
“How many keys you will need?”
“One.”
He put a plastic card into the magnet, then slid it into a little envelope.
“You are in room two twenty-five, up the elevator, to the right. Continental breakfast is served every morning at six o’clock. There is coffee available twenty-four hours a day in the dining area. Will there be anything else?”
“Do you have a few things like a toothbrush and toothpaste? I was in an accident and my stuff is stuck in the trunk of my car.”
“Oh, my goodness! I’m so sorry! Is everything okay?”
“Yes, thank you. Everything is fine.”
“Of course, of course, we have some necessary things.” He handed her a simple blue toothbrush in a plastic package, the kind you can’t buy in a store anymore. Just dentist’s offices and hotels. There were a couple of aluminum packets of toothpaste, a small deodorant roller and a little brush. “Here you go.”
“Thank you. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight Mrs. Cohen. If there is anything I can do for you, please call. My name is Raghu Ramaswamy and my wife, Kala, is here during the day.” The soft voice was pleasing and familiar to her Northeastern ear. How did they end up in Abilene? He probably wondered the same about her.
She walked down the hall to the elevator. Mirrors with fake gold marbling covered the wall of the elevator and she tried not to look at herself, but she did. She looked like shit. Her curly hair was frizzing like a halo around her head. She had been nervously twirling it with her fingers so the strands by the sides of her face were clumped together and she looked…really…stupid. She made a squirrel face and squirrel sound into the mirror. The elevator door opened because she had forgotten to push a floor and an older couple got on. They probably didn’t see her squirrel face but she was pretty sure they heard the squirrel noise she made with her front teeth on her lower lip. She pushed two, they pushed three, the door closed and she leaned back into the corner, the naughty schoolgirl.
Her room was clean and as expected. She liked staying in cities where she could find a newer chain of hotels, the kind with inside hallway doors. She could barely hear the highway sounds, eighteen wheelers heading east and west, making time at night. She felt connected, in her own way, with those night drivers. Faceless, driving behind tinted windows.
Now she would go through the litany of thoughts which would bring back the tear soldiers. And come they did. It had been three years since the accident. She had put miles and months behind her but the intensity of her feelings never seemed to diminish. Big tears fell. She threw herself on the bed and lay there, face up. They rolled out the corners of her eyes, down into her hair, into her ears. Her nose became stuffed up.
When she was a kid she had stayed up one night and watched Twilight Zone. Hiding behind a chair, she was unseen by her parents. Years later this one episode became both a nightmare and a symbol of total loneliness. In fact she had described the episode to Chris and it had become their catch phrase for being physically or psychologically alone. “Whoa, Twilight Zone!” Never in her dreams did she imagine she would live in it.
A group of space explorers had traveled to some Mars-like planet with four suns and no nightfall. Somehow their means of getting back to Earth had failed and they were marooned. Out of necessity they developed their own social structure and government. A person who had previously been a lower level worker on the spaceship became a despotic leader on this desolate planet. Many years later a rescue mission materialized and a ship came for the stranded explorers. Everyone was to assemble for the return and there was a specific lift-off time. Their leader was upset for the obvious reasons. He would be forced to resume his lowly position on Earth. He tried to convince people to stay, but they would have none of it. In fine Twilight Zone fashion he stayed behind, only to realize too late the mistake he had made. He ran screaming toward the space ship taking off in the distance. He then returned to the deserted settlement. The sunlight, heat and desolation seemed oppressive.
Leslie had been terrified by this episode despite the absence of monsters. She was sure the show had been in black and white, but in her mind’s eye the stage was red. The four suns intensely yellow. And now, she lived there too.
3
Leslie was the only child of elderly parents. They had passed away a couple of years apart, while she was in school. Her husband tried to fill the gap. Life went on. She was as prepared for her parents’ death as any child could be. They had both lived long, happy lives. After her dad died, her mom became despondent and was never herself again. She lived for a while with Leslie and Chris. When she started needing constant supervision, Leslie had to place her in a nursing home. Wasn’t long before mom joined dad but she lived to see her daughter graduate from medical school even if she didn’t know it.
After her mom died Leslie took a year off from school and during that year she got pregnant with the twins.
After the accident, she was alone. Twilight Zone alone. More to it than just being lonely. Sometimes when she cried she called for mom and dad, sometimes Chris, Vic and Vivi. Now she was having trouble remembering their faces, except for the last time she saw them. Pictures at a carnival.
She lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling. Little pieces of foam stuck forever in an endless landscape of acoustic white. Light from the parking lot bled into the room from behind the plastic curtain along with the waxing and waning sounds of trucks and cars on the highway. This was to be her home for the next month or so. Its similarity to all her other homes was a slight comfort. The king-sized bed, microwave oven, mini-fridge and coffeemaker were all she required right now. Tomorrow she would repeat a ritual of purchasing the necessities. They would be left behind when she departed. She would eat meals at the hospital.
The flow of tears slowed, all played out. She began to focus on the foam pieces on the ceiling. A form of self-hypnosis. She could search for the patterns, lose them and find them again. In time the tears dried against her temples, plastering strands of hair into their crystalline rivulets. Slowly she began to lose focus on the patterns and finally fell asleep, deep sleep, which she needed. Her mind took care of her in that way. She had important work to do each day and when the opportunity presented itself, sleep would come. Once she had read that ship captains