Back to Bainbridge

Having friends, being a winner. Nice while it lasted. Now we were moving again, for the sixth time in five years. Middleton had been our home for exactly six months. We moved there after Mom had gotten dumped by Stan, her latest in a string of bad boyfriends. Mom always joked that her picker was broken when it came to men. It wasn’t funny.

“Vic, you want some?” Dylan’s grubby hand reached up from the back seat. He was ten years old but usually acted about five, always carrying his teddy bear around like a baby.

I inspected the offering. A crumbly corner of an overly handled Pop-Tart. “No thanks, Dyl. You go ahead and finish it.”

“Too gross,” muttered Judith. She was twelve, but tried to act older. “So not okay.”

A few minutes later, Mom pulled into the parking lot of the motel by the freeway. I studied the license plate of the car in front of us and said the letters and numbers in my head. K39 2CJ. It was a thing I did.

A little bird with a puffy orange chest sat perched on a trash can at the edge of the parking lot. It cocked its head and peered straight at me. Can a bird have a facial expression? This one came across as very judgy. Like it had never seen a raggedy-ass family with all their crap loaded into their minivan before. Like it could tell I was reciting a dumb license plate in my head, and it wasn’t a bit impressed.

In the motel lobby, two guys in matching jumpsuits were changing the sign on the wall from Comfort Inn to Quality Inn & Suites. The lady at the front desk had clumpy mascara and a badge pinned to her blouse that said, ‘My Name is Cookie.’

“I apologize for the construction, ma’am,” she said robotically when Mom approached the desk. Her face stretched into a waxy smile. “We’re in transition at the moment.”

“So are we, Cookie,” Mom chuckled. She opened her purse.

I looked down and focused all the intensity of my energy into tracing the faux woodgrain of the floor with my eyes. It was like a highway. To where …? No matter. I’d have taken that road any place it led. I pressed my fingernails into the palms of my sweaty hands and prayed Mom’s card wouldn’t be declined. I had a hundred and eight dollars in my ladybug wallet, just in case. But I had other plans for that.