Check in at the Pine Away Motel (ARC)

by Katarina Bivald

  * * *

  Derek’s four armchairs are lined up on the veranda. I’m sitting in one of them, and I’m the only one who doesn’t need to wrap up in blankets and coats and scarves to protect myself from the cold. There are two six packs of beer by MacKenzie and Camila’s feet, and Oregon’s night sky spreads out above us.

  “These are good chairs,” MacKenzie says. “Armrests wide enough for a can of beer.”

  “I don’t want to be the kind of person who says I told you so,” I say. “But have you noticed that we’re lined up in four armchairs on a veranda? Getting old together.” I nod appreciatively. “Just thought I’d mention that.”

  “Do you know what I thought at the party yesterday,” Camila says. “I thought: what a fantastic thing to have been loved by Henny. I’m going to take that love with me. Whatever happens, we were loved by Henny.”

  “That’s not something everyone can say,” MacKenzie agrees.

  Michael swigs his beer. “Do you think we would’ve been happy together?”

  It isn’t a tortured question. He has spent the entire day writing, and is almost done with the first couple of chapters: “A Story about a Fish (I’ll get to the rocks, I promise)” and “A Photo Album of Rocks.”

  “I think it would’ve been impossible not to be happy with Henny,” MacKenzie tells him.

  “Do you think Henny is happy wherever she is now?” Camila asks.

  “God and I have had our disagreements,” MacKenzie says, “but not even I can imagine he’d let her be unhappy.”

  “She wouldn’t like it if we were unhappy,” Michael says.

  “Then we’ll have to make sure to be happy.”

  Camila smiles. “You know, I think Henny might be working on that. She would hardly let God make us unhappy.”

  “True, but she wouldn’t give him a talking-to,” MacKenzie agrees.

  “Uh,” I say.

  “Or moan,” Michael adds.

  “No, no,” I say.

  “She would just give him a wounded look, like she didn’t understand how he could do that to us. She would tell God she knew he was kind deep down, and surely he couldn’t want us to be unhappy? It must be some kind of misunderstanding, right, God?”

  “I don’t know,” Michael continues. “If she was upset enough, she might yell at him. Like she did with the man who ran the candy store. So if it suddenly starts raining candy, we know she’s involved.”

  “Amen,” MacKenzie agrees.

  “Do you think…” Camila begins. “Do you think she was always supposed to be the one who left us first? Because none of us would’ve been strong enough to manage it? This way, we know Henny is waiting for us somewhere.”

  I lean back in my armchair and look out at the mountain and the stars. “Yup,” I say. “I’m much closer than you think.”

  Right then, Buddy, Clarence, and Paul come over to join us. Buddy and Clarence each take a beer, but Paul sticks to coffee. Before long, their cheery voices even bring out Dad and Stacey. They are wearing matching aprons, and their cheeks are flushed from the heat of the kitchen. Suddenly, the veranda is full of people. But they leave my armchair free.

  I glance around at them.

  “I think we’re going to need more armchairs,” I say.

  Epilogue

  The Very First Time

  Their breath forms clouds as they drag their suitcases over to Camila’s Honda. It’s more reliable than MacKenzie’s pickup; that’s what they have agreed.

  I walk alongside MacKenzie and Camila, breathing out as hard as I can and laughing at the novelty of not being able to see my own breath in the cold air. All around us, the frost makes it look like everything is brittle and glistening.

  “You’re the one who wanted to set off early!” Camila suddenly snaps.

  MacKenzie gives her a questioning look, but then she grins. In an excessively whiny voice, like one of the many couples checking out of the motel, she says, “If you hadn’t insisted on unpacking everything for a one-night stay, we would at least have had time for breakfast. How much luggage does a woman need?”

  Camila throws the first case into the trunk and starts scraping the windows. She tries to keep a straight face, but a smile keeps threatening to break through. She has heard enough arguments to know how they go. “And if you’d just asked for directions, we would never have even ended up here!”

  “You were the one reading the map. ‘Turn left,’ you said. Sure, sure.” MacKenzie throws two more bags into the car. “All this just to visit your mom!”

  “Why don’t you say what you really think of her.”

  “Because you’re always pissed off for days when I say that your mom is a hysterical, passive-aggressive sociopath whose only joy in her dead, empty life is to drive me crazy.”

  “That’s just because she doesn’t laugh at your jokes,” Camila tells her, laughing when MacKenzie suddenly wraps her arms around her and pulls her close. She takes off her scarf and loops it around Camila’s neck, kissing her on the tip of her nose—the only thing not covered up.

  I’m sure everyone is going to come out and wave them off. It’s just that we’re pretty busy right now. A busload of Christian senior citizens has just arrived, and are currently swarming across the parking lot.

  They’re here to experience God in the American wilderness, on a singles trip organized by a congregation in Colorado. They’re heading for the Canadian border, but when they read Mrs. Davies’s column, they couldn’t resist stopping off here. They have clearly been enjoying some songs on the road, because several have lyric books in their hands, open to “’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.” It’s one of my favorite psalms.

  Dad and Stacey are ready to welcome them. Clarence has been given strict orders to stay away, and Paul has left brand-new Bibles in every room.

  Paul seems to be doing much better now. I think he might even have put on a little weight. Dolores has never been able to resist a skinny man. He is still refusing a proper room at the motel, but he has put up curtains in the office and hung a picture of me on the wall. Alejandro enlarged it for him and put it into one of the frames Camila bought from the secondhand store.

  Alejandro’s collection is still on the wall in the restaurant, though pictures keep disappearing. Just the other day, I spotted Cheryl taking one of me and MacKenzie. Alejandro keeps it refreshed with copies and new photos when he finds time between Instagram updates and his own projects. He has an exhibition in Portland next spring.

  MacKenzie and Camila wait patiently for the chaos to be dealt with.

  “Off with the two of you!” Dolores eventually announces, holding out her arms so that MacKenzie and Camila can hug her from both sides.

  Dad’s bright-red scarf is left slightly lopsided as they hug him, too.

  Stacey gives them a warning glance, and they do actually hesitate for a few moments before hugging her. “God knows whether ten percent of the motel is worth it if we’re going to carry on like this,” she mutters, but then she disappears inside to fetch two enormous paper cups of coffee for them.

  Dolores has already given them enough food to reach Arizona, of course. At least. Their first stop is Idaho, and she clearly doesn’t trust that they also have food there. This is MacKenzie’s first long holiday in…well, ever. But they’ll be back in time for Christmas.

  Michael too. He leaves a few hours after them, and I’m back in the parking lot to see him off.

  I thought it would be sad, but it’s not at all. He’ll be back. Maybe I’ll still be here then, maybe not. That thought doesn’t scare me anymore. I don’t think time is as linear as we assume it is. I think everything exists simultaneously, all of the time.

  Somewhere, right now, we’re meeting for the very first time. Somewhere, he is stepping into check-in fifteen years later, and I don’t know which of us is most nervous. Somewhere,
my body is pressed against his, and time and space have ceased to exist. All that matters is the heat of his skin. Somewhere, we’re parting ways for the very last time. I laugh. Michael’s body, I think as though I’m repeating a miracle that will never cease to amaze me.

  Somewhere, I’m waiting for them.

  As Michael drives away, the manuscript of his new book is in the seat next to him. I read the dedication over his shoulder. To Henny, who left all this behind.

  It’s a beautiful thing, to be loved, I think as I wave until I can no longer see his car. I stay in the parking lot for quite some time after he is gone.

  And then the first snow starts to fall. Huge, wet flakes sail down through the air, slow and almost confused. They don’t seem to have quite mastered this whole falling thing yet.

  “It’s snowing!” I cry. I turn to Dolores and whisper in her ear: “You want to make hot chocolate. Hoooot choooocolate. With plenty of marshmallows!” I shout the last part over my shoulder as I run across the parking lot.

  The snowflakes land softly on trees and road and parked cars, tumbling through the air as if they don’t have a single concern in the world.

  One day, I’ll leave all this behind. I know that. But right now, I look up at the sky and see the white flakes slowly fall, only to swirl away right when they should have landed on my nose. I stretch out my arms and take a couple of hesitant dance steps. I pick up speed and spin around and around, out on the road, surrounded by snow and winter and cool, crisp air.

  Through the swirling snow, the latest addition to our sign shines bright and clear. In brilliant neon, it reads:

  Henny was here!

  Reading Group Guide

  Text to come.

  A Conversation with the Author

  Text to come.

  Acknowledgments

  It is a difficult, frustrating, very lonely, and often incredibly ungrateful job, being the friend of a writer. And never is this more true than when the writer has spent three years thinking about death. To my long-suffering friends, family, colleagues, and publishers: thank you.

  To rocks, of course, none of this matters. They were here long before humans arrived, long before we started telling stories by the campfire, or invented printing techniques, or felled trees to turn into paper. They will be here long after we’re gone. When I wrote this book, Marli Miller and Sam Castonguay generously gave of their time, knowledge, and passion for rocks. If I’ve made mistakes or taken liberties with the immense history of the earth, please note that it’s not their fault. They did their best.

  And finally, a special thank-you to Basic Rights Oregon. Anti-gay ballot measures are a part of Oregon’s history, but so are organization and resistance. Basic Rights Oregon made the happy ending of this story possible, and their important work continues today. You can read more about it and support the organization at basicrights.org.

  About the Author

  Katarina Bivald is the New York Times bestselling author of The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend. She lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with a great many bookshelves and an impressive collection of rocks.