Lost in Hotels

by Martin, M.

  He will return. I know he will. I listen for the sound of the metal latch opening and the comforting tap of his footsteps to interrupt the silence. I see only the small purple box on the table that sits with a solemn darker purple bow, unaware it will never be opened between lovers. I return to the sofa and take his seat, now cold in his absence. I run my finger across the table to feel for any dirt or lingering element of him. Perhaps I should leave, but I lack the will to walk away from the only place in the world where he might return and tell me that despite all my treachery he might still love me.

  Outside, a light snow falls over the park. I look for him as far as my eyes can see, but there is no one on the street at this hour, even on a weekend night. My feet ache from the constraint of my shoes that are a size too small, but I don’t dare take them off should he return, not wanting him to see me feeling in the least bit at ease amid his sorrow. He left almost two hours ago. I do another look around the room checking under the fallen blanket in the bedroom and in the bathroom where I pull his damp towel from earlier in the day and take it with me back to the living room. I look it over for a single strand of his hair, which I find and hold close to my heart. I linger on the scent of the hotel’s shampoo that smells of a lemony ginger and not of him.

  At 5:00 a.m., the night turns to a faint dawn, the snowfall briefly stops, and the sunrise reflects in the buildings across Gramercy Park. I have been sitting in this chair for hours. I jump up to pull shut the weighted red curtains, not wanting to concede to a new day. He must return. I make my way into the bedroom and lie next to the fabric shadow of him still left in the bed, submerging my pain in his pillow that offers a faint smell of him initially and then of its feather fill. I pass my arm along the bed with its silky sheets. I close my eyes and try to pretend he is by my side once more.

  And for a moment in my mind, he is here again. My leg reaches over and imagines our bare ankles intertwined as I study his sleeping face. His body is in stillness, his athletic legs, and bare torso exposed and ready, even when withdrawn in sleep with its dark hair that stops so abruptly at his elbows and thighs before returning to the small knap below his belly button that I take with my lips. I imagine us on that raft in Panarea as he emerges completely nude from the sea glistening in streams of water rolling down his body. I take his cold foreskin that’s still wet inside my mouth and gaze into his eyes that study my face each time he penetrates me on the floor of the boat as the infinite sky frames his bare silhouette above me.

  Though I am not asleep, I awaken from my thoughts and fantasy to realize I will never feel his touch again. I will never know what it is like to see his smile or feel him inside me again as he wanders the world far away from me. All our memories and thoughts of those times that I will savor for the rest of my days will likely rot in his mind as something he’d prefer not to remember.

  The loss of him is simply incomprehensible. Let it be, I tell myself in this hour of my darkness where life seems so unlivable in my broken-heartedness. Part of me wants to die on this bed with him still here in some partial form in memory or smell or otherwise, falling into a deep and never-ending sleep where perhaps we can be together instead of having to face one day, this first day without him. I don’t want to know what it’s going to be like to count the days since we last talked, last touched, or last laughed as week by month by year the vividness of him disappears.’

  It’s been almost twelve hours since he left. My thoughts forward to him being gone long enough to already be back in London or waking up in another hotel in this vast city that even despite him being geographically near, might as well be a world away. I fully awaken from my semiconscious escape. A wedge of daylight is making its way through the curtain that I pull tight and see the clouds have once more blocked the sky in a gray, gloomy haze. The couch no longer has the indentation in the cushion from where we sat last night with a now-dry towel with no remnant of anything other than the hotel laundry smell. I turn on my cell phone to see if there are any texts or messages, but there’s little more than work e-mails that come through.

  Then there is the sound I have waited hours to hear again. I question if I’m actually even hearing it as the quiet has been almost deafening. But alas, the metal deadbolt on the door unlocks, and a hesitant foot steps into the room.

  “Housekeeping.”

  Noise echoes through the vapid room and through me as all hope feels lost, and a glowing housekeeper whose head barely reaches the center of the door tepidly enters.

  “You want housekeeping?” she asks.

  “No, but thank you.”

  The last thing I can imagine is having someone erase every trace of him from this space that time is already expunging on its own. I imagine her patting the chairs clean of the smudges that his fingers made, the sink that still has residue of his shaving, and a bed that is the one last place we share even if he has long since departed. I don’t want to leave this room, as I know that upon leaving, he will never be again; it will forever more close this chapter of my life with him, as all hope is likely lost for his return.

  “Just a second. Did someone check out of this room yet?” I ask the housekeeper, realizing that David would have settled the bill before leaving. My heart stops, hoping that he hadn’t while affording me hope that he might still return.

  “Yes, miss, last night,” she says in an almost baritone Spanish voice. “But you can take your time as hotel is no full. Hour or so no problem.”

  With her words my heart sinks. I imagine David checking out of the hotel in the middle of the night with no intention of ever turning back. The housekeeper leaves me in my broken-heart sanctuary as I return to the bed to smell his pillow in vain if for one last time. I lay my body and my head down on top of his print carved from the sheets and mattress, saying good-bye the only way I can for the last time. Part of me ends here and now, knowing that I will never truly love like this again for the rest of my life.

  I look at my watch and realize that 4:00 p.m. is nearing, a lenient checkout time even at the most friendly of hotels. I return to his chair and brush the velvet seat clean of any trace as well as the bathroom sink, which I clean with my bare hand before going into the bedroom and stuffing his pillow inside my bag and pulling it out of the bedroom that never became what I imagined it would be for the weekend.

  Then there is the box, the one last remaining trace of David that I can’t bring myself to open as I stare at it on the table. I can’t imagine actually unwinding the bow or pulling it apart to see the sentiment of his loving heart. I try to pull the ribbon, but stop myself knowing this is truly the last piece of him that I have as I stuff the small box in my bag. The creaks of the hardwood floors and the living room with its drawn blinds quarantine the emotions of the last day as I weep as I have not wept this entire time. I take my few steps to the door, which I touch, open, and step out of with a single look behind me at the nothingness that remains of us.

  Then the door closes behind me as I take the first few steps back into my life. The narrow hallways retreat to the dark elevator that conceals my tears and into the lobby that’s buzzing with laughter, conversations, and music. The walls strewn with rich artwork appears monochromatic in my misery and seems to boo my soul as I retreat. My head turns in every direction hoping to catch a glimpse of him anywhere in the lobby, but alas, nothing. As I stand on the curb where it is I belong and queue for a taxi, I begin to contemplate what is yet to come. The second front of this campaign of betrayal awaits my contrition.

  The taxi driver arrives with a full holiday garland strewn across the dashboard. He’s wearing a Santa hat that he holds on tight during speedy turns, even in the ice. The buildings seem to weep as they rise around me, and I contemplate what is to come at home and how I’ll probably have to find a place to at least temporarily stay until I sort out exactly what’s happening and where I’m going. I close my eyes and wonder if perhaps this is all a dream. I imagine the hate
I will see in Matt’s eyes, the hurt as he screams in our Christmas-tree-filled apartment as Billy lingers in rare silence watching his young world fall to pieces. I imagine the hurt Matt must feel as he sat at home maintaining our life while I was with this David the entire time during all those weeks away.

  The city is immersed in Christmas. Lines form outside shops, even in the Lower East Side. Gramercy Park feels farther and farther away crossing the East River.

  As the driver takes my exit and rounds our street, I yell for him to stop. I notice a light snow begins to fall once again.

  “This is fine,” I say.

  “Are you sure? It’s pretty cold out there,” he says, looking at me with his black Italian eyes through the rearview mirror.

  “No, I’ll be fine. I don’t mind,” I say with as much of a smile as I can muster.

  “And messy with that bag of yours,” he continues.

  “No, I really don’t care … plus, I feel like walking.”

  I open the cab door and stand on a deserted street corner where wiser people have long since retreated to their happy homes. I need the time to figure out what exactly I will say to Matt, if he’s even there. Should I be honest and explain how I feel, or should I be sensitive and just let things be the way they are as we come to some sort of agreement to separate?

  I begin walking into the snow that falls against me. I take each step carefully as the wheels of my bag struggle between the ice and softer snow. There’s a magical stillness to the air upon snowfall; sound no longer travels freely, and we hear the mechanical sounds of our own morality from our heartbeats to our own inhale and exhale.

  I approach the front of our building with its iron fence and a scattering of padlocked bicycles that surround a concrete garden, which is where David must have stood in the last days looking up to wonder which one of the lighted cutouts was mine. I pass up the outside steps like a ghost of my old self, my heels slide on each slippery step with my filthy wheeled bag in tow. He would have taken these same steps and stared at the nonfunctional security box before pushing his way through the scratched red door and into the metal elevator that always smells like some sort of curry on the way up to the fourth floor. He would have seen the stained industrial carpet that lines our hallways as well as the occasional tricycle and uncollected newspaper on the way to our humble door that lies at the end of the hall.

  My heart pauses in anticipation of what is to come. I don’t know whether it’s better if Matt is here ready for our collision or long since left me and gone to his parents. I wonder if our neighbors heard when the conversation became more intense, what David or Matt called me, and who will remember. I approach the door that will open to unleash the final effects of my selfish ways as I close in on the steel-gray handle, close my eyes, and push it open.

  There’s a sense of life inside as bacon hangs in the air. Maybe Matt made one of his breakfast dinners thinking he’d be alone for at least another day. There’s a laundry basket piled on the dining room table that looks as if it’s been there for a few days in some sort of contempt, and chairs pulled in all directions. Blankets lie on the couch as if it’s been a refuge for a night or two, and homemade snowflakes hang from the windows that now frame real snowflakes outside. I take the three steps that are our foyer and recognize the more stylish furniture pieces from my single life hidden among an IKEA canvas selected for functionality and storage.

  As I step farther into the living room, there on the other side of the door are Matt and Billy on the floor playing with cars in front of the Christmas tree and the TV booming a PBS cartoon. They pay no notice to me at first, as I hover in the background unsure of what the immediate reaction means. More than a minute seems to pass before I interrupt.

  “Hi, guys.”

  There is no reply.

  “Matt?” I say again.

  As their faces turn, I prepare for their eyes of judgment and pain that will begin the final cycle of my demise for which I am ready to face and hope to come out anew.

  “Mommy is home!”

  Matt says this and jumps to his feet and walks in my direction with ignited eyes. His eyes piercing through his month-long beard hold no anger, no disappointment as he walks across the room, and I wait for the moment when his anger will emerge. He comes closer as I question what it is I’m seeing. I fear his closeness while wondering if he might grab me or do something entirely out of character given the extremity of the situation. He grabs me abruptly, and I stutter backward. He shocks my cold face with a kiss that stuns my soul and confuses my wind-chapped lips ready to begin in a scream of apologies and the inevitable story of David from the beginning. I can feel the loving hands of my son along my knees and around my thighs as he shifts his weight into me in the purest of affection.

  The affection does anything but soothe my indicted heart. The misery and mourning inside me wants nothing to be normal again. This is the moment where I come clean, that I tell Matt how I feel, and what it is I really want for my life. This is where I tell him there’s no longer a connection between us, and I’ve felt so displaced for the past few years.

  Matt holds my body as the manly scent of his flannel and sweats uniform grabs me like the foreign touch of an unwanted advance that I don’t know how to fight. I imagine what David thought of him on first sight, imagining me with Matt, living in this place, and in this life that couldn’t be farther from his own.

  “You’re not supposed to be back until tomorrow,” Matt says in more of a statement than a question, but with no hint of anger or pain that part of me so craves.

  Tears begin to flow. Billy holds on so tight that for a moment everything seems okay, painfully okay as if nothing had happened, and we are all simply returned to where we were a year ago, a week ago, a day ago. I pick Billy up and hold him close, his soft baby hair dries my eyes as he flails to get away, and I struggle to hold up his weight with my knee.

  “No, I came back early,” I reply tepidly, still unsure if this too is a trap. Matt takes a seat at the dining room table and hides the basket of laundry underneath the table.

  “Did you get everything you needed for your story?”

  There’s no question as to why I returned early, what my days entailed, or how I made my way through a treacherous snowstorm, as David would have asked. He has no curiosity for what I am feeling or have experienced in the days since we’ve parted as with those homecomings that have come before. Matt gets lost in his own immediate thoughts of holiday plans and dinner with no inquisitiveness for what happens beyond these walls, whom I met, or what he might have experienced had he joined me on this trip that didn’t exist. My reality sets in; there is no other life than this for me now. There is just this.

  “Wait, you’re crying. Are you crying? Are you all right?” Matt asks as I try to hide my face.

  “No, I’m okay,” I reply, wiping tears from my face that simply continue to fall.

  “Show Mommy what you made, Billy.”

  Matt points to the snowflakes that line all of our windows, their sills caked over in a mix of dirt and generations of paint. Billy wobbles about like a little man, a mini-version of his dad with almost identical gray pants and a sweatshirt. He returns to his toy cars next to the Christmas tree trimmed in a popcorn garland and a homemade star on top.

  “I’m just going to put this away,” I say with a finger pointed at my bag covered in salt residue and dirt that looks nothing as it did sitting on the floor of the hotel. My bag alone shares the secret of my broken heart.

  I retreat to our bedroom and see our unmade bed. Glasses of water cluster on the side table with its LCD alarm clock and photos of happier days. My heart tells me to leave, to walk out the door and to a hotel for a few days as I manage to sort out the unwinding of this life. However, after a year of selfishness, I also know I need to be a better mother starting right now before it’s truly too late. I tuck the bag in the back of ou
r closet as I mutate into my home uniform of running pants and a sweatshirt, which I wouldn’t have even worn to work out in when with David.

  My hair is a mess, and I haven’t showered in days. I glance down and reach back into my bag to finger the little box open, my last reminder of him as I return to this life. I untie the ribbon in haste as my fingers reach through the velvet packaging to feel the shiny stones and coldness of metal before me. I dare not look as I touch it to my face and lips, and my eyes open to catch shiny emerald stones wrapped around a single band of warm yellow gold. My eyes look closer to an inscription written inside: “Never further than right here inside.” I repeat the inscription to myself and then again, as tears stream down my face. I fall to my knees as if life has forsaken me.

  After hiding the ring back inside my bag and temporarily away from my thoughts, I return to the living room where Billy and Matt are curled up on the couch watching Finding Nemo. I join them as the reluctant third on the edge as I stare out the window contemplating how to go forward. They watch in an almost hypnotic gaze even though they’ve seen the movie a thousand times. The previous day spins like a filmstrip in my mind, and I wonder if David even came to the house or met with Matt at all. I truly can’t figure out how he knew all that he did, even details like how many bedrooms we have.

  “So did I miss anything while I was gone?” I ask.

  There’s a silence as if Matt is trying to wait until there’s a lull in this child’s film before engaging in conversation.