Cynthia Thomason - Firefly Nights

The sheriff climbed into the patrol car and backed out of the parking lot. Soon he was over the hill and returning to blessed civilization.

And Kitty and Adam went into their room.

Actually none of them will do.

The words Campbell Oakes had uttered a few minutes ago about the rooms at the Saddle Top Motel flashed in Kitty’s mind. And now, standing just over the threshold of unit number six, Kitty understood what he’d meant. And she suddenly felt as tired as this abandoned old room looked.

Adam entered the room and covered his nose. “Phew. Now we have another gross smell.”

Kitty yanked open the rubber-backed drapes covering the picture window. “That’s neglect, Adam,” she said. “Mildew. Stale air. Whatever you want to call it. Just please help me open the room up.”

They each cranked handles on opposite sides of the glass until two large panes creaked open. A breeze swept inside, depositing dust from the sill on a round Formica table and two orange vinyl chairs.

The admittance of air helped eliminate the odor, but the accompanying sunlight emphasized the deplorable condition of the furnishings. There were two double beds, each covered with thin spreads in faded gold and avocado stripes. Kitty walked over flat shag carpet that might once have been a peachy color, but was now nondescript. She ran her hand over the top of a six-drawer brown dresser. Three of its pulls, which reminded her of the fins of a vintage automobile, dangled loose, hanging by only one screw. A television sat next to the dresser on a rusty metal stand.

Kitty went to the rear of the room where there was a gold vanity under a rectangular mirror held in place by a half dozen clear plastic mounts. She opened a door to reveal a bathroom decorated in small gold-and-white tiles. When she flushed the toilet, she was relieved to see the discolored water swirl over rust stains in the bottom of the bowl and disappear. It was replaced with a welcoming pool of clear water.

A sharp click followed by an electrical buzz sent Kitty rushing back to the sleeping area. “What’s wrong?” she asked Adam, but immediately saw what had produced the strange noises. Her son sat on the end of a bed, his face cupped in his hands as he stared gloomily at a TV screen with more static than picture.

“It’s not even color,” he said. “I can’t watch this.”

She checked the back of the television. Its bulbous shape convinced her the set was color even if the only remaining evidence of the NBC peacock was a sickly Martian green. “Probably just needs a new antenna,” she said.

“This place sucks.” Adam turned the channel wheel, which only had thirteen numbers. He was able to get minimal reception on four of them.

“We’ll worry about that later,” Kitty said. “For now, get off the bed.”

“What?”

Seeing her son on the old linens had revitalized Kitty with the instinct to protect her young. “I don’t want you sitting there.”

He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind, but he stood. She ripped the linens from both beds and piled everything, sheets, spreads and two thin blankets, into Adam’s arms. “Take these to the breezeway. I saw a decent washer and dryer and a bottle of detergent. Fill the washer with half the linens, dump in some soap and turn it on.”

He grimaced at the load in his arms. “I don’t know how to wash clothes.”

“It’s easy. Read the dials and choose whichever settings claim to have the most superpowers.”

He trudged out of the room, sheets trailing behind him. Kitty followed him outside but stayed on the walkway. She leaned her elbows on a railing that ran the length of the covered walkway and took a deep breath. “Okay, Kitty,” she said to herself. “You can do this. It won’t be so bad.”

The wind had calmed so that only a gentle breeze rustled the pitiful shrubs that stubbornly existed in nutrient-depleted beds in front of the motel. Kitty plucked a pale, drooping leaf from an evergreen plant and studied it. “All it would take is a little fertilizer and some serious weed removal, and this bed could be brought back to life,” she said. “I’ll bet these bushes could look as good as...”

She stopped, wondering where she had been going with that sentence. And then she looked across the two-lane road to hills that dipped and rose in elegant curves up from the gap and into the horizon. A wispy haze hovered over a cleft, a saddle-shaped indentation in the tallest peak, bathing the mountain top in a cool blue-gray mist.

It must have been a nurturing spring, she decided, because every tree in her view was dressed in the most remarkable shades of green, from deep emerald to pale olive. She twisted the leaf between her fingers. “Yep, you could look as good as what lives just across that road.”

She blew the leaf into the breeze and glanced over her shoulder into the bleakness of her room. What had seemed hopeless only moments ago now at least hinted of promise. “It’s sure a long way from my father’s house,” she said, “but it’s a heck of a lot better than Bobby’s sixteen-foot travel trailer.”

She’d been in her second year at the University of Florida when charming, sinfully handsome Bobby Watley played a golf tournament at a nearby resort. Kitty volunteered to be a scorekeeper. Her mother had died a few weeks before, and Kitty was desperately seeking any activity that would get her out of the classroom and the claustrophobic despair where her grief had taken her. Unfortunately it had been Bobby’s dazzling smile that had taken her mind off her problems, not his less-than-stellar golf swing.

Two weeks later, she dropped out of school and married Bobby in the town where the next tournament had been held. Now she couldn’t even remember the name of the place. Towns all ran together, and state lines became indistinct when you stayed in campgrounds that all looked alike.

She shivered now, thinking of that dismal time in her life when she was married to Bobby. They never had enough money. They never had enough room. When Adam came and he needed space, she’d been forced to toss out most of the possessions she’d brought with her. She fixed simple meals on a small, two-burner stove.

But of all the things she lacked with Bobby, the most glaring was encouragement. When she craved support, Bobby offered criticism. When she asked for help, Bobby demanded more than anyone could give. Had she known Bobby was so emotionally needy, she never would have married him. Had she realized the same of herself, she especially wouldn’t have.

She’d been young when she married Bobby. But she’d felt old when she left him. After twenty-four months of watching her husband fail on the golf tour, Kitty called her father and begged for his forgiveness. A day later she walked away from a dry, dusty campsite in Arizona with nothing in her pocket but the credit card her father had overnighted, and her ten-month-old son in her arms. And because Bobby knew he didn’t have a chance of seeing any of Owen’s money, he signed the divorce papers sent by the Galloway attorney.

Even when she’d put those years behind her and moved back to Richland, she constantly struggled to move forward without being haunted by the past. It didn’t help that Owen fanned the fires of her memories. Sometimes she thought the greatest satisfaction he had in life was reminding her of the foolish mistake that had cost her a college education, her independence and, most importantly, her self-esteem.

“Mom?”

Brought back to the present, she smiled at Adam. “How’d you do with the laundry?”

“I guess I did okay. I read the directions on the soap jug.”

She drew him close to her side. He flinched at first and then stood quietly, as if he sensed that contact was what she needed. Stroking his hair, Kitty admitted that this child of hers was a handful, but he was all she had of Bobby Watley and all she wanted from him. At least Bobby had given her Adam.