The motel room has the same smallish floor footprint as our house—so white and square that the walls disappear from our minds. But the glass in the windows has been painted dark grey and the curtains are heavy and filthy. The smell is a cheap construction of freon, cigarette smoke and car air freshener. Some music is coming from the ceiling speakers. Tinny and incomplete, like sounds on the roads we have passed. It feels as though we’re on the very edge of our normal existence as husband and wife. But it also feels like we’re dead center, with nothing but roads spiralling outward from us.
I fight an urge to rip the curtains apart and break the windowpanes open to the weakening light and the cold smell of falling rain. I want to break down the walls and feel the daylight that sits contente
