Synesthesia: Chapter Thirty-Nine

serial fiction

Image: Zan Lazarevic, Unsplash

But I couldn’t hear the details of the bad news the cop had for Roberta, because at that moment, Jacob erupted into a noise that was somewhere between a wail and a shriek. I whipped my head away from the wall to see what the issue was.

Amber was holding him, rocking him, shushing him as if he were a baby. “It’s okay. You’re okay,” she whispered, the rocking motions growing larger and more frantic.

I pressed my ear back against the wall, but if the conversation between Roberta and the police was still going on, it was drowned out by the shrieking and shushing of Jacob and Amber.

Then I caught the scent of orange blossoms and understood what had happened. Jacob had woken up from a nightmare.

I closed my eyes and inhaled the fear slowly, still trying to listen for whatever was happening outside our door. Would the cops knock, interrogate us, ask for witness statements? The thought of it made my stomach clench and churn. I had a clean criminal record due to smart choices and sheer luck, but you never know when the past might catch up with you. An interaction with police was a risk I didn’t want to take.

The orange blossoms began to fade, and Jacob’s howling died down into little gasping, hiccuping sobs. Amber kept rocking him, gazing down at him as he pushed his face into her body, as if he could burrow back in and be safe from all dangers real and imagined.

Eventually, I decided it should be safe to take a look out the window and see if the cops had left. I stood up slowly, trying not to set Jacob off again.

I pulled the curtain aside, trying to ignore the grimy, almost oily feel of the fabric under my fingers. With one eye, I looked out into the parking lot.

The cop cars were gone, and so was Roberta.

I shuddered, remembering the intonation of the man’s voice: I’ve got some bad news for you.

Should I tell Amber? She’d told me she’d just been using Daniel, that she hadn’t had any real feelings for him. But I couldn’t forget the way she’d looked at him, sitting in his lap, batting her eyelashes at him like he was her Prince Charming.

No, I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t tell her Hoka guy was dead. I couldn’t risk breaking her heart.

---

Half an hour later, we had vacated the room and packed up the car to continue north. Just over a hundred miles of highway stood between us and the Grand Canyon.

And then what, I asked myself? I’d promised Jacob I’d take him to the Grand Canyon. I don’t know why that was what popped into my head, but I’d had to say something to that traumatized little kid. And Amber, too, had seemed to like the idea. But what would happen once we got there and looked down into that big crack in the earth? Would we part ways and say goodbye forever?

Something brushed my arm, and I jumped.

“Zodiac?”

Amber was staring at me, her eyebrows pushing together into creases. I realized I was standing just outside the motel lobby, my hand pressed flat against a door clearly marked “PULL,” leaning into it with my full weight.

“Right,” I said, grasping the handle and following the door’s instruction.

A bell tinkled as the door opened outward, and a moment later, Roberta shuffled into view behind the counter, her eyes almost as pink as her shirt.

She smiled in that empty, artificial way everyone in the service industry masters within their first week and then can never seem to unlearn. But she brought with her the unhappy scent of bread dough rising.

“Checking out?” she said in a voice pitched high to mask that she’d been crying. I looked from one red-rimmed eye to the other, wondering which one of us she was addressing.

“Yes,” said Amber, placing the room key onto the counter with a clattering clunk. Somewhere toward my feet, a small voice whined about being hungry.

Roberta sniffled as Amber turned to go. The bread scent was so thick, I struggled to breathe.

I leaned across the counter. Roberta was easily two or three inches taller than me, so I ended up staring at her neck rather than positioned to whisper into her ear, as I had intended.

“I am so sorry for your loss,” I said in a low voice.

Immediately, the bread dough became a kennel of wet dogs.

“Excuse me?” Roberta asked, stepping back away from the counter.

I felt my face flush with embarrassment. “I, uh… Your husband,” I stammered, kicking myself for stupidly trying to show empathy. Better to just let people deal with their feelings on their own.

The wet dog changed to soap.

“What the hell do you know about my husband?” Roberta spat, one of her eyes holding me in a death glare. “Did he send you here to check up on me?” She slammed one thick palm down onto the counter. “For fuck’s sake!”

I started backing away from the counter. This had definitely been a mistake.

“No, he didn’t send me,” I protested. “I just—”

“Just leave!” Roberta yelled.

I was choking on soap. I could taste it, bitter and vaguely floral on my tongue. My eyes burned with it.

“Sorry!” I shouted on my way out the door, coughing and gagging on the soapy smell of Roberta’s fury.

Outside, Amber was staring at me. “What the hell was that about?” she asked.

I shook my head, my eyes watering. I spat out soap onto a patch of dusty gravel showcasing the shriveled corpse of a cactus. “Nothing,” I croaked.

---

The three of us were inside the car. I turned the key in the ignition and felt the engine come alive beneath me. “We Are the People” by Empire of the Sun started playing on the CD player, and I guided the car out of the parking lot, slipping northward onto the highway, toward the mountains in the distance.

The chorus began. Canned chihuahua, Amber had sung that day when I’d first picked her up in Phoenix.

I looked over at her, and something in me ached.

I had to tell her how I felt.