A Small Hotel
Page 17
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And eighteen minutes later, Michael Hays slams to a stop in front of the Olivier House. He is out of his car and across the sidewalk and through the front door and at the far end of the entrance hall a woman rises from behind the desk and he strides toward her and he can see her stiffen and she is steady but for her hands that she struggles to keep from flailing in panic and Michael slides to his left to clearly put her out of his path, to head straight for the doors to the courtyard beyond.
“She’s not here” Ramona says and he slips by.
“I’ll call the police,” she says.
“Do it,” Michael says. “And an ambulance.”
And he’s through the doors and into the loggia and past the empty pool and he’s going up the stairs two at a time pushing through an air thick with the ghosts of Kelly and Michael moving in this very space leaning into each other pausing once yes he held her here on this second floor landing and he kissed her and he turns and he presses hard gasping up one more floor now one more and he leaps these two steps and these two and these two and these two and he breaches breathless onto the third floor and Room 303 is before him and he pulls up and he squares himself and there are two narrow black doors in the frame with their upper panels glass and with the two knobs side by side in the center and he focuses on the spot between and just above the knobs and he lifts his right leg and he kicks and the door quakes but does not yield and he realizes he instinctively held back because of the glass and he is a fool and he senses a terrible silence inside the room and he raises his leg again and he kicks hard and the doors fly open before him and he strides over the shattering glass even as it still scatters and tumbles and the lamps are on and he strides and she is lying on her side at the far edge of the bed twisted there with her back to him and he strides and the room stinks and it is sweet to him it is hope to him she has rolled onto her side and has brought the pills up and he strides but was it enough and he is passing her and he looks down at her legs splayed on the bed and he knows the signs and her legs are white as the light he has pushed through the dark but her feet, her feet are blue, but it is a dusky blue and the paleness of the blue gives him hope and he is beside her and he sits and he turns her and he lifts her and with one hand he cradles her head and her eyes are open ever so slightly and he says “Darling please stay, please stay” and her eyes fall slowly closed and he says “It’s Michael, my darling” and he waits for the eyes to open and they do not and he presses her to him and he is weeping now and he draws her away from him wishing he could show her his tears. But her eyes are closed, and he says “Kelly.” And again he says “Kelly.” And he says, “Kelly, please try to look at me.” And her eyelids stir. And they begin to lift. And very slowly Kelly’s eyes open. They open just a little and they stop, but she has opened her eyes. And Michael says, “I love you. I’m so very sorry, my darling. I love you.”
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In the broad expanse of sunlight beneath the atrium in the West Lobby of the New Orleans Airport, Michael stops and looks hard into the dimness in the direction of the concourse. He was right. It’s her, her flight is early. Sam drifts this way, looking about, and even as he sees her, she turns her face in his direction. Her face brightens and she waves and he lifts his hand to her and she rushes forward. He takes a step and another toward her and they are together in the middle of the sunlight and they embrace.
They stand very still and hold each other close, not saying a thing. And Michael lets his daughter decide when to let go. He lets her decide but he’s glad she’s prolonging this, he’s glad to hold his baby in his arms. Then she gently pulls away and their hands go to each other’s shoulders and they look into each other’s eyes and he is very glad she has her mother’s dark-of-the-night eyes.
“How is she?” Samantha says.
“She’s fine,” Michael says. “She’ll be fine. She’s threatening to bite off the tube down her throat.”
“That’s a good sign.”
“Yes.”
“And you, Daddy. How are you?”
Michael fights now. He fights off all the old impulses he has to shut up, to brush everything aside and just stay where he has always stayed, alone inside his head, lost but content in the woods. “Me?” he says.
“You,” Sam says.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “That’s how I am. I’m very sorry.”
“You didn’t do this,” Sam says.
“Sam,” he says. He hesitates. But only because he has to push back the welling in him. He’s not afraid now to show his tears to his daughter, but he wants to get these words out clearly.
She waits, searching his eyes. “Yes?” she says, softly.
“I love you,” Michael says.
“Thank you, Daddy. I love you too.”
“I’ve always loved you,” he says.