Brian pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Shit. Alright. Let’s go.”
Out of the car, Amelia winced as she stretched, the glass nagging beneath her skin. Brian shucked out of his suit jacket and rummaged through the backseat.
“To hide the bloodstains,” he said and offered Amelia his blue and grey striped sweater.
Amelia yanked it on and followed him into the motel office. A door chime trilled off tune as they entered but didn’t rouse the young clerk behind the counter. He puffed on a cigarette and swirled the antenna of a tiny TV as “I Dream of Jeannie” bounced in and out of signal.
Everything about the place was frozen in time. Their steps squelched across a pus-colored linoleum floor, and an old calendar hung on a wood-paneled wall.
At the counter, Brian cleared his throat. The clerk’s eyes drifted between Brian and Amelia. A tawdry implication was baked into his sly grin, though his voice remained impassive.
“You want the hourly rate?”
Brian glared at the clerk, but before he could reply, Amelia handed over her last twenty. “How long will this get us?”
The clerk cupped his chin and mulled it over. “Two hours, but I’ll give you three.” He took the cash and slid a room key across the counter. “You’ll be in six, other end of the lot.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it,” Amelia said and collected the key. “Also, do you have a pair of tweezers, by chance?”
With a sidelong glance, the clerk examined the dried blood onher fingertips. Unfazed, he sifted through a drawer of random junk.
“No tweezers,” he said but waved a pair of needle-nose pliers. “Will these work?”
Amelia didn’t rightly know. The ends were blunt and not made for picking out glass. With no other options, she took the pliers and thanked the clerk.
Outside, Amelia scanned the empty lot and discerned the factory through the fog. Beyond that, she couldn’t see the road and listened for passing traffic, but heard nothing, just moths flitting against the light outside their room.
Amelia unlocked the door and switched on a floor lamp. Stains splotched the room’s mauve carpet, and an air freshener did little to mask stale smoke. A room was a room, though, and they needed to sleep.
Brian must’ve had the same thought. He flopped to the bed, unbothered by the pilled comforter dusted in crumbs. Amelia peeled off the sweater and tossed it next to him.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” she told him and disappeared into the bathroom with the pliers.
A fluorescent light above the sink buzzed as she studied her reflection in the mirror—skin wan, hair tangled, mascara smeared beneath exhausted eyes. Blood and wine stained her white dress.
With trembling hands, Amelia flipped on the water that gushed from the spout. She dunked a sliver of soap beneath the stream and scrubbed the dress’s skirt. She dunked again, scrubbed again. Water sloshed from the sink and flooded the counter. All that mess and the soap didn’t help. It just made it worse. The stains were set. They’d never wash out.
Hot tears spilled down Amelia’s cheeks. She hadn’t cried yet.What kind of monster doesn’t even cry?
With a gasping breath, she scrubbed harder, the skirt soppy and sudsy and the stains stubbornly refusing to lift.
Mom will know how to get them out.
Amelia stopped. The thought surfaced so casually cruel.Water babbled in the drain and the soap crushed in her fist. She went down hard with sobs deep and keening.
On her hands and knees, she cried like a child. Like the time she lost her mother in the grocery store. Like the first day of kindergarten waving from the school bus with a backpack twice her size, those see-you-soon moments of gone momentarily.
She cried because there was always a last goodbye, and the lucky ones saw it coming. She cried because she knew in her heart she wasn’t so lucky, and no one expected the end to come like that.
Brian hurried into the bathroom and blotted out the vanity’s garish light. He pulled Amelia from the floor and held her against his chest until her cries lulled enough that she could breathe again.
“We should get the glass out,” he said, his breath humid against her temple. “You’ll feel better.”
Amelia nodded, though better was relative. Maybe it was catharsis for them both. The pliers met Amelia’s skin with pain and left with relief as Brian meticulously pulled the glass free.
When he was done with her arms, he crouched to the floor and started with her calves. Amelia steadied herself against the edge of the counter until he was done.
“There,” Brian said, still squatted behind her. “The smaller pieces will work their way out. I’ll leave you to it.”
