Boris Fishman - Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo

“Maya,” her husband called to her again. He had already climbed into bed.

She looked down at him vacantly.

“Are you thinking of them?” he said. He was trying to be thoughtful, and she tried to be grateful.

“Yes,” she said. “What is it?”

“Switch off the light. I forgot the light.”

In minutes, Alex was wheezing into his pillow as if he were at home. She lay next to him silently. She envied his comfort — and he was the one who had insisted it was uncomfortable here. She had been wrong — it would not be a night when she would drop into sleep. To avoid waking Alex, she tried to avoid moving. She was an odd prisoner, no bars but she couldn’t move. So she lay, incarcerated in position, and wept silently at the ceiling.

The clock was past two A.M. when she allowed herself to slip from the bed. She tiptoed to the bathroom. The ventilator’s rattle was shocking after the silence of the bedroom, and she closed the door too loudly. Heart beating, she listened to make out whether she had woken anyone, but no sound came. To get rid of the noise, she had to switch off the light, and was plunged into darkness.

She thought about climbing into the bathtub and letting hot water run over her, but the darkness of the room was so complete that she would make new noise. So she sat on the closed toilet in the darkness and stared at the wall. She was out of tears, and just stared.

Her mother had told her a story: Her own father had walked into the bathroom one night to relieve himself. He didn’t like to turn on lights. But when he relieved himself, he relieved himself all over his wife, because she had had the same idea and then fallen asleep on the toilet. Maya stifled a mirthless laugh. The story was ludicrous.

It was not one of her mother’s inventions; it was from life. And yet, the story seemed impossible, contrived, whereas the stories her mother told and invented felt true. Maya had been taken from her mother too soon to tell the difference well, though her mother hadn’t helped; she hadn’t drawn the line well. The natural relation between Maya and her mother, between children and parents, had been terminated by Maya’s love affair with Alex. This was the true curse of the way she had emigrated, a curse Alex would never experience. At that moment, Maya was a child who wanted her mother.

Time had lost its shape. She rose — why now? why not ten minutes before? if she was not outside herself, she was not inside herself either — and maneuvered open the door. In the room, she stared at her clothes, hung neatly on the back of a chair, as if she could correct for the betrayal in her heart by being neat outside of it. She began dressing. The keys to the Escape were on Alex’s nightstand. He had repurposed a small dish from the bathroom to double for the wicker basket at home, and her heart squirmed at fishing the keys out of the dish. Now she made noise. Now she wanted to be caught. But he slept.

Walking downstairs, she marveled again at the power of greater predicaments to diminish the lesser: She would have to drive herself down snow-flecked roads in the night, and yet she felt no fear, only numbness. It was useful. Sometimes numbness was useful. She was stunned to discover Wilma napping in a soft chair behind the reception desk. She stirred on hearing Maya’s footfalls.

“You do all of it,” Maya said in disbelief.

Wilma rubbed her eyes and stared at the clock. “I do all of it,” she repeated drowsily and yawned. “Mr. Gund hasn’t been with us for a number of years. What in God’s name has you up at three thirty?”

“Where is Sheff City?” Maya asked.

“Sheff City? What do you want with Sheff City at this hour? Is everything all right?”

“I can’t tell you,” Maya said, holding back tears. She hoped Wilma would understand and not press.

“I see,” Wilma said. “It’s fifteen miles down the road. That way.” She stuck out a chafed finger. It was raw with cooking, dishwashing, laundry.

“Is there only one hotel there, like here?” Maya said.

“Did you have a fight? I have other rooms. I’ll give you one for free. No need to drive in the night.”

“It’s not that,” Maya shook her head.

“There’s three,” Wilma said. “The Hansen place, Overlook, and Fish and Fawn. Sheff City’s on the river there, so they got the angler business. Wait a minute — did your husband’s brother find you? I just thought of that.”

“It’s him I’m going to see,” Maya said.

Wilma gave her a long look. “I better not ask any more questions,” she said. “You don’t know his hotel?”

“He said only Sheff City.”

“You sure he wants to be found?”

Maya shrugged helplessly.

“Well, he’s probably at the Hansen. By the look of him, he’s probably at the Hansen.”

“Why the look of him?”

“Fish and Fawn is for the yuppie folks from California. The Overlook — that’s a frat party. So I’d say the Hansen.”

Maya remained in place, midway down the runner to the front door. “I admire you,” she said finally.

Wilma waved her away.

“I’m sorry,” Maya slurred. “It’s hard for me to find the right words. I meant only that — if I lived here. . I would enjoy seeing you.”

Wilma gave her a wondering look. “Well, at least one of you can have a job in my kitchen whenever he wants. Now get out there, get your drive over with. It’s getting cold.”

“I’m sorry for waking you,” Maya said.

Wilma waved her away once again.

Sheff City was in the direction of Laurel and Tim’s home. Harry Sprague’s home. Maya would not be allowed to forget. But she didn’t wish to forget. She climbed behind the wheel, and, after a tottering start because she had pressed the gas too firmly, slid onto the road. There was not one car on the low-lit street; soon the streets ended and she was in pure, rural darkness. But the headlights were powerful and lit the way clearly. She pulled over carefully, tinkered with the controls by the wheel until she found the beams, and pulled back out, fingering the lever from time to time so she knew where to flick if a car was oncoming. But no cars were oncoming.

She stole looks at the odometer. When 8.9 miles turned to 9, she gazed off in the direction of Harry Sprague’s house. There, shrouded in darkness, was the car that had delivered her son eight years before. That spot — all that remained of Laurel and Tim — would vibrate in her heart. Every time she saw a map, she would think of the distance to that spot. She did not have to be physically present for that to transpire. But it couldn’t have without her seeing the place. That was the trick of it, at least for her — she had to see it to know.

She drove into the night, a driver at last. It turned out to be easy, the car sensible, wanting to be driven; she felt proud of herself. All this time she had feared the unnecessary. She had preferred to fear. Her fear of the idea had been so large that she had not bothered to wonder if the practical fear behind it was great; she took for granted it was. Alex occasionally groaned at having to drive her, but never pressed her to learn. Was this a kindness or unkindness? Both. But it was from him, in the afternoon, that she had got her first real lesson. She said thanks to him.

She thought about Laurel. Driving was like washing dishes, like weeding a garden — it busied your hands and gave your mind recess, like the parent expert at keeping a child distracted. And so Maya allowed herself to drift off. She allowed herself to imagine, finally, lights up ahead, coming. They were festive: What other person had business on this road at this abandoned, desolate hour? A secret meeting in the night, while everyone slept. As the cars neared each other — Maya slowed down to be careful; her heart was beating too fast and she was paying attention to too much at once — the other car came to a standstill and switched off its lights. It sat in the road strangely, like an animal killed in an unnatural place. Maya jammed the brake. She wasn’t smooth with it, the car bucked, and she jumped a little in her seat. She stopped well ahead of the other car. Then, embarrassed to be shown for a novice, she crawled forward until the hoods were even. She turned off her headlights, killed the ignition, and waited in a ticking silence as the cold moon lit up the road. It was less dark with the lights off.