A couple of hours from now, thirty-eight years ago, a limping UHaul rental truck and a dusty black Chevy Beretta with Maryland plates will pull into the lot of the only motel in the last 50 miles showing a vacancy sign.
The truck door will open and a guy will slide from the driver’s seat to the ground, limping a little himself as he crosses the lot and goes into the office.
A couple minutes later, he’ll come back out and go over to the Beretta for a word with a driver. He’ll point at the end unit; the one that doesn’t have a light over the door. The driver will put the car in gear and drift across the lot, while the guy hauls himself back up into the truck, convinces it to start, and crunches quietly over the gravel to pull in next to the Beretta.
By the time he gets out of the truck, carrying a rolled-up towel in his arms, the woman will have opened the room, and carried a plastic box and another towel inside.
They’ll take the next little while getting in the litter box and the grocery bag filled with bowls and packets of dry cat food. The woman will pour out the food and set up the litter box before she goes outside to join the man on the porch. He’ll be staring down the hill. There’s something as dark as the moonless sky, and almost reflective, down there. It feels alive.
“What’s that?” the woman will ask, putting her arm around the man’s waist.
He’ll lean into her. “Lake Winnipesaukee,” he’ll say, and sigh.
The woman will sniffle (she’s starting a stress cold; it’ll get worse over the next couple days), and for a little while they’ll just stand there in the cool, very dark night, staring down at the surface of the lake they can almost see.
“Tomorrow, right?” she’ll ask eventually, and she’ll feel him nod.
“Tomorrow,” he’ll say. “We’ll be in Maine.”
