Lydia Millet - Sweet Lamb of Heaven

They checked in at the cocktail hour — I have a glass of wine before dinner most days, while Lena and I play “Go Fish” or “War”—and shortly after that we heard a knock on our room door. When I opened it there was Don, the two men standing behind him, politely waiting, and Don peered past me and asked Lena if she wanted to conduct a tour. Typically she has to pester him for that; she’ll run along the row of room doors to the lobby as soon as she sees a car pull in and beg to be the tour guide, and Don will check with the new guests to see if they’re sufficiently captive to her charms. But this time Don sought her out, and it thrilled her, of course.

So we set out, the four of us — Don peeled off toward the lobby again — and I talked to the balder of the two men while Lena kept up her monologue with the other, a gaunt, handsome blond called Burke who seems to need consolation. The balding one, Gabe, said they wanted to take advantage of the off-season rates, they don’t go in for tanning anyway, the cancerous harm of the sun’s rays; winter beaches are just fine. Nor do they like to swim, he said, except in pools that are very clean. They also do not fish, surf, parasail, or favor any other ocean-related activities.

It became clear to me — as we stood near the ice machine and I listened to Gabe rattle on about bikini- and Speedo-clad crowds lying on beaches, the rude spectacle of this — that the two men knew Don, that Don was a personal friend of theirs, and that was why he’d felt all right bringing them back to our room.

At that moment I saw Don coming out of the lobby again, this time with Kay; they walked with their heads inclined toward each other, talking low. And it struck me with certainty that Don knew Kay , too. In fact it could well be that everyone else staying here already knew Don; that Lena and I were now the only guests who had not known Don before we came to stay at his motel.

I felt a little jarred.

And now I couldn’t remember how I’d found the place, when we first came to stay. Had I driven past a billboard? Had I sorted through online reviews of budget motels? But I couldn’t remember a billboard or a review. All I recalled was driving up the long gravel road in an exhausted reverie, hardly thinking, and turning into the small parking lot, shaded with pine trees. I’d liked the peeling wooden sign.

Welcome to THE WIND AND PINES.

I had a feeling of unease, flashing back to the movies I’d watched when the voice was first with me, a vision of black-clad people leaning over a baby carriage. I thought of a sedate old apartment building that was in truth a hive of sinister insects, where behind the ornately carved doors, in sleepy luxury, the neighbors quietly worshiped some dark beast.

I wondered, if I asked Don how he knew them all, whether he would tell me a simple story about how he’d gotten to meet them or would avoid answering my question. I felt a temptation to try this, to confront Don shockingly, demanding information.

But my misgivings are absurd, I realize that. The motel is Don’s home, and motel managers can have friends to stay like anyone else.

WHEN THE VOICE fell silent relief washed through me like bliss. I know everyone has reliefs as the days run their course: the feeling of relief is as familiar as a hiccup or jolt of fear. But this relief was the swiftest joy of my life.

Lena said her first word early in a day, so indistinctly that at first I took it for a murmur. She crawled across the rug and began idly banging on my shoe with a red sippy cup. I was skimming the news on my computer, a mug of coffee at my elbow, when she repeated the word, Ma-ma, Ma-ma , until I pulled out of my reverie and looked down.

Then she stopped saying it, her mouth falling open as she gazed at me. And in the wake of her utterance a new silence fell around us like a sheath.

I sat in startlement for a few seconds — it seemed to me that the silence had its own soft, rising hum.

This was it, this was how it happened: this was its departure. Her first word had supplanted the voice. And suddenly I knew, in a rush, what had been suggested to me, what had been hinted at opaquely in the preceding weeks — the voice had a life cycle. It passed through those who were newly born, in the time before they spoke, and when they spoke it moved on, displaced by the beginning of speech. It lived in the innocence before that speech, the time that was free of words.

The end, the end, I thought: the beginning .

I picked her up and laughed, bouncing us both around.

For a while, after she said that first word and the voice fell silent, I was worried it would return. This reflexive, ritual worry recurred whenever I found myself in an anxious frame of mind.

But the voice didn’t return, and by and by I persuaded myself to stop fearing.

And during the new silence I spent weeks, even months in an altered state — the euphoric state of a lottery winner, as I imagine it, or maybe a newly minted Nobel laureate, a state of incredulous rapture. I’ve never won a lottery, I’ve never been given a prize, but I had this. I floated wherever I went, my baby in the stroller ahead of me or on my back — my tiny girl toddling contentedly beside me, holding my hand. I smiled a lot, people said, shone like a bride.

Ignorance is bliss, few sayings are so demonstrable, and I was blissful without the voice, I drifted on thermals. I loved the freshness of the new quiet and sometimes sat deliberately in a hushed room, picking out faint noises from the street. And the opposite too — I played favorite songs loudly, held Lena and danced with her. Excitedly I prompted her to speak, I asked for repetitions of the word Mama , for other words, whatever. I would lean down over her little face with such joy in the movement! — lean close to her, lean eagerly — no one between us, nothing but sparkling air.

Since the voice fell silent I’ve often been able to put the whole episode behind me. There’ve been many days, many nights, whole weeks when I’ve been able to forget the untenable aspects of that time, the first year of my daughter’s life.

I’ve frequently been successful in my denial strategy, and it’s probably this success that has allowed me to live a life that, aside from my domestic problems and our flight, could almost be called normal.

SINCE GABE AND BURKE arrived, the routine has changed. Actual maids come now, since the linen laundry is more than Don can handle by himself. They’re a couple of teenagers from town who do their work with earbuds in and haven’t introduced themselves to us.

Plus Don has opened up a spare room off the lobby and begun to cook. The food he offers is simple and good — special dishes for Lena, a children’s menu with pancakes or cinnamon rolls in the morning, macaroni and once bite-sized hamburgers at night. These didn’t tempt Lena since she doesn’t eat meat and never has; she feels too sorry for killed animals.

The motel guests have been gathering in the café for breakfast and dinner, and since Don keeps limited hours — as befits a chef with a base clientele of five — we’re usually all there at the same time. And it’s not just the guests anymore; stragglers from town have also been appearing here. First there were two or three old people wanting a break from microwave dinners, then a portly state trooper; Faneesha, the UPS driver, came at the end of her rounds and was instantly commandeered by Lena. Every night there are a couple more customers.

The first evening it felt strange to dine in the room off the lobby. I hadn’t realized how much of a restaurant’s mood comes from an illusion of permanence. The place seemed like an oversize supply closet, despite the flowers and candles and checkered tablecloths. But already by the second dinnertime it didn’t seem preposterous to call it a café—even the lighting seemed altered, though the lamps and candles were in the same places. It had gotten more welcoming overnight.