Arlen

“Arlen?”

No answer. She’s leaning against the window, looking out at the darkened fields flashing by. Her hands are folded loosely in her lap. I try again, softer this time.

“Arlen, sweetheart.”

She doesn't stir. I sigh and focus on the road again. We’re in New Mexico, on our way to Los Angeles to visit the coast for a much-needed vacation. My wife has been looking forward to the trip for a long time. She loves the ocean. I chuckle quietly. All that talk about the stops we’d make along the way, about the scenery, and she passes out as soon as we leave Houston.

Let her rest. She’s earned it. Come to think of it, so have I. The clock on the dash reads 10:30, and we’ve already been driving for twelve hours straight. I yawn and glance at the itinerary. Technically, we’re a bit behind schedule, but the closer we get to the Arizona border, the easier it would be to make it up. A curious little fact I’ve noticed over years of driving that highway is that no one seems to enjoy going into Arizona, but they sure enjoy leaving. No surprise there, if you ask me.

I flip the itinerary closed, yawn again, think about turning on the radio, and decide against it. The mile markers flash by, glowing like little green flares in my high beams. Familiar green flares. I shiver, and not from the AC. Arlen likes the car cold, and I’ve long since gotten used to it. The shiver comes from that, and the last thing I want to do right now is think about that.

A larger green flash breaks my mental wrestling, and I glance up just in time to see a ‘Motel - Next Exit.’ No brand name, though, at least not that I see. Most unfortunate.

“Maybe,” I hear my wife whisper, “we’ll get lucky and there’ll be no bedbugs, like that time in Albany.”

Awake at last. Thank God. “Heh. Maybe,” I reply without looking up. We’d gone to visit her sister in Albany a month before the wedding, and a storm had forced us to stop at a tiny bed-and-breakfast overnight. When we woke up, we were both covered in tiny bug bites. Thus began our shared aversion to off-brand hotels.

Seventeen years. Has it really been that long? We met in college. I was studying economics, and she was studying history. I think I fell in love as soon as our eyes met. Mine are gray, and boring, but hers are blue-green and sparkling, like the ocean she loves so much. And not once, in seventeen years, have we had a major argument. I consider that a point of pride.

There’s the exit. I blink and follow it as it winds down and around beneath the highway. I know so many people who couldn’t make it work, or didn’t think it through. I know so many who flushed it with liquor, or plowed it under with secrets, or failed to protect it from the world. But not us. We’re made for each other. Or rather, she’s made for me. Sometimes I still wonder if it’s true the other way around, no matter how much she assures me so.

Arlen is a remarkably kind woman, a self-described empath. I don’t think there’s ever been a day where she hasn’t managed to make me smile, no matter how low I feel, which is actually quite often. That alone would have been enough to win my heart, but she’s wise too, and funny, and drop-dead gorgeous. So gorgeous. There’s a look she gives me when we’re in bed, a look so full of burning affection that it almost makes my chest explode every time without fail.

I frown. I haven’t seen that look in a long while. Not since that.

“Nope,” I mutter to myself. “Nope, nope, nope. Not now, please.”

The thoughts recede, just in time to pull around the bend and see the motel--a long, low, hideous brick building with a fizzling neon sign. Figures. I sigh and park the car, then go to see about a room. Lo and behold, there are twenty-two vacancies. What a surprise. The ninety-year old behind the desk calls it quits for the night as I head back to the car with the key. When I get there, Arlen is fast asleep again.

“Hey, sweetie,” I murmur, gently squeezing her hand. “We’re at the hotel.”

Nothing, as expected. I sigh again and undo her seatbelt, then lift her from her seat. She’s incredibly light, and I wonder again how much she actually gets out of what I feed her. Forty-three steps later, and I’ve tucked her into bed. I run back for the luggage, lock the car twice, just to be sure, and not soon enough, I’m sliding into bed beside her. She doesn’t move, even when I gently fold her in my arms and start stroking her hair. It smells like the watercress shampoo she uses.

Or rather, the shampoo I use on her.

I squeeze my eyes shut. It’s that again. Everything felt the same tonight as it did then. The mile markers, the sign, the trees on the side of the road. The only thing missing is the patch of ice that sends our car screaming into the guardrail, through the guardrail, off the side of the bridge. The water is cold, colder than death, but it's not as cold as Arlen’s skin when I pull her from the river. Her eyes are half-open, and they leak that water onto my hands like frozen tears as I clutch her face with numb hands and scream her name until I cannot breathe.

A miracle, they tell me. A million to one chance, even with, especially with, the brain damage. I know better, for they have never seen her strength. I teach her to walk again, to speak, to remember big and little things. It’s hard. She sleeps for weeks at a time, so long that I fear she may never awake, but she always does. I watch her heal, I watch her slip back to herself, to me, but she never quite makes it. For three years, I watch, and spiral, and desperately scrape at anything and everything.

One day, I read an article in the Times. A neurosurgeon proclaims a breakthrough. He says that a person’s greatest love can heal their mind, sometimes completely, but always somewhat. And for my Arlen, such a cure is only a road trip away. To my delight she is eager to try. The Pacific will make my love whole again, finally, after all this time. All I have to do is make it there.

It takes a long time for me to fall asleep, but eventually I do, and it comes without dreams of her, for once.

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A smell wakes me up. It’s not good.

I blink awake and take a deep sniff. Rotting meat, no doubt about it. I sit up and cast a glance around the room. A vent winks at me suspiciously. There’s a dead rat behind there, I just know there is. Our clothes will stink. I’m gonna give that old fart a piece of my mind.

“Don’t worry about it,” Arlen whispers. I look down, surprised, and see her smiling widely at me. She’s always had a smile, even since that.

I grin at her. “That doesn't bother you?”

She shakes her head, a movement so small that had she not been laying on a rustley pillow I wouldn’t have noticed. “I can’t really smell much of anything anymore.”

I lean down and kiss her on the forehead. “But you’re talking. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

No answer. I sit up again, and see that she’s fallen back asleep, still smiling. I blink back a sudden rush of tears, then pack our things and carry them to the car. The old guy is watering the motel’s sorry excuse for a lawn, chewing tobacco that replaces the rat smell in my nostrils. He spits as I approach, grinning cheerily. “Mornin’ mister! How was yer night?”

“There’s a dead rat in the vents,” I grumble, forgetting my wife’s words. “I’m surprised I didn’t smell it when I went to bed.”

The old guy raises an eyebrow. “I just had th’ exterminator in last week, mister. He got all the rats.”

“Well, he missed one,” I snap, and slam the trunk harder than necessary. Luckily for him, the old guy decides to shut up, and I head back to the room for Arlen. He’s still there when I come back into the parking lot.

“Whatcha got there, mister?” he calls as I buckle her in. I ignore him. As we drive away, I can see him staring after the car in my rearview mirror, a strange, haunted look on his face.

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We don’t drive very long before I notice a blinking orange light next to the speedometer. I squint at it. The line on the fuel gauge is hovering near empty. Not bad mileage, considering the make and model. It’ll never replace the old Ford, but it’s still not bad.

There’s a Sunoco sign on the horizon, and I notice the exit just in time to make a fairly impressive cut across three lanes of traffic. Arlen could’ve done it faster. She’s an excellent driver. When we were dating, we’d go to a go-kart track near our apartment complex pretty often. She’d always win. She could drift those karts ten times better than anything Vin Diesel could do with a GT. I can still see her hair streaming out of her helmet behind her, mixing with the engine smoke in a dark, beautiful cloud.

Maybe if she’d been driving that night, she wouldn’t be asleep right now. She’d have been able to stop the spin, or brake harder, or, or…

I take a deep, shuddering breath. Someday, I will let the tears out, but not today. Today I have a car to gas up, and a road to drive.

The station’s lot is mostly empty. There’s only one other car, pulling in only a little after ours. As I stop at the pump, Arlen stirs quietly. “Are we there?”

“Not yet, dearest.” I fold her hand in mine. “Just stopping for gas. You want anything from the mini-mart?”

She swallows. “Water. Please.”

“Of course.”

She leans her head on the window again. I wait for a moment, then let go of her hand and climb out. I fill up the car--gas is so damn expensive these days--and then I head inside. There’s a bored teenager behind the counter, and faint music winding its way through the air. On the way to the bathroom I notice its one of Arlen’s favorites, because of course it is. "Disco Inferno," The Trammps, 1976. Burn baby burn. I got her that album as a wedding present.

Inside the bathroom I feel a stab of grief so painful it almost makes me double over. This time a few tears really do get out, and I quickly kill them with my shirt-sleeve. We’re going to dance to that as soon as we get home. The instant I open the door, I’m going to run inside, slap that on the record player, and blast it all over the neighborhood. I tell myself that seven times by the time I’m done using the toilet, and again as I close the door behind me.

What was it? Water. She wanted water. There’s a cooler near the counter. I grab a bottle of Dasani, and when I glance up, I see a balding guy, not much older than me, standing at the counter. Leaning over it, actually. He’s talking to the teenager, who’s listening intently, in a hoarse whisper. They both look spooked, and as I approach the counter the balding guy straightens up abruptly and clears his throat. Alarm bells start up in my head.

Sure enough, as the kid starts silently ringing up the water, the bald guy leans in close to me. He’s sweating profusely. “Say, pal,” he says. “Is that your car out there? The black one?”

“Yeah,” I answer after a moment. “What about it?”

The guy grins sickly. He looks scared out of his mind. “I noticed your tire was looking a bit lean on the way in. Thought you might want to fill it up, is all.”

He’s lying, and I don’t know why. The alarm bells are louder now. I can feel myself starting to sweat a bit. “Thanks,” I say as the kid hands me my water with a shaking hand. “Have a good one.”

“You too,” the guy replies weakly. I glance over my shoulder at them as I head back to the car. The kid is dialing on a phone, and the guy is leaning heavily on the counter. They’re both staring at me, and quickly look away at my glance.

People these days. Always making something out of nothing. Still, I’d better get going. I can’t let anything stop us from getting to the coast, much less a ‘lean tire.’

“You worry too much, my love,” Arlen tells me as I turn the key in the ignition. “We’ll get there.”

“I know,” I say, my anxiety fleeing at the sound of her voice. “Oh. Where should I put your water?”

“Just there,” she says, twitching her hand at the little cupholder behind the gearshift. “I’m not that thirsty anymore, somehow. Sorry.”

“Well, it’s there just in case,” I reply, and put it where she wants. “I’m glad you’re awake.”

“Me too,” she sighs, leaning back in her chair. “But I’m still so tired. You must be too.”

“A little.”

The light hits her as we pull out of the station, and it frames all of her perfectly: her hollow eyes, her wide, toothy smile, her dusky skin and lovely hair. She’s gotten finer with age, I think. But the light brings a smell, too, a stench of decay. Familiar. Close. That old bastard must have put the damn rat in my floorboard when I wasn’t looking. I’m glad Arlen can’t smell it. It’s terrible. No wonder the balding guy was sweating. He must have seen it through the window. Which I can’t roll down, either. Arlen likes it cold in here, and all the air from the AC will go out if I roll it down.

“I can’t wait to get to the coast,” my love, my heart, my everything whispers as she falls asleep again. “We’re going to have such a good time.”

“Yes,” I whisper back. “Yes we will, Arlen. I promise.”