Going Blind

There wasn’t much time to pack. She remembered her mother saying to throw the hamper into a suitcase and that would do. You can wash it when you get there. For the first time in my life, however, she was looking at an empty hamper. She had just done laundry the day before the sirens went off. They would sometimes get a day’s warning before the hurricanes arrive, but not always. This time it was only two hours, and then mandatory evacuation. Standard procedure was to go to the community center up in the hills near the new Price Condominiums, but the last time there was a storm, she’d been up there for a week. Meals were made up exclusively of canned tuna and nearly stale bread. Everyone slept on cots and hemmed and hawed day and night about what kind of damage they’d be returning home to. Her house was raised like most built after the 2030’s, but if the winds whipped up enough, she could still end up with windows knocked out and rain pouring in.

This time she decided that it was worth splurging for a hotel. Prices would be raised due to the emergency, but she hadn’t touched her savings since retiring, and there was enough to justify a week in the safe zone at one of the nicer establishments an hour or so away. She chose Baxter & Brown, but there was a way to reach it on the back roads and the highway would surely be a blockade. It still took her three hours to get there, but she was able to call ahead and secure a room. The manager on duty let her know she’d purchased the last one. The lobby was seething with people begging for any available lodging. Some were offering upwards of a thousand dollars just to sleep in the public restrooms for the night. She managed to get the attention of a staff member on their way to get extra security, and they were able to check her in quickly.

“Room 283,” they said, “I’m sorry, but it’s not our nicest.”

“I’m not here for a vacation,” she said, “Just trying to ride out the storm.”

The sounds of the crowd all around them seemed to contradict the idea that the storm existed only on the other side of the walls. An offer was made to try and locate a bellhop to take her single suitcase up to her room, but she politely declined seeing as how the staff appeared to have their hands full.

The elevator seemed to crawl up to the second floor, but she knew it was only her exhaustion delaying her reaching safe harbor. Truthfully, she would have liked a room on a higher floor--not that it mattered. She was far enough away from tides now, even though eventually it would all begin to crawl inward. Her sister had moved to the Midwest years ago, and was begging her to do the same.

“Even Arizona would be fine,” she said, “I know you like the heat. One day that’ll be under water too, but everything will, I suppose. We just won’t be there to see it.”

Her sister was now the age their mother was when the cancer first appeared. She was a few years behind that, but neither of them could pretend that they weren’t entering the final chapter. It was hard to know whether mortality was a flaw or a gift these days. It’s true that she wouldn’t see the worst of what was to come, but she could still experience a taste of it. As she held her phone up to the room scanner, she let out a breath that seemed to come out as smoke. Forgetting to breathe properly was a natural response during trauma, but lately she always felt as though her lungs were pulling on nothing. All of her felt empty except the parts that were filled with grief and memory.

The employee who checked her in wasn’t lying. The room was on the smaller side. Its only window faced the parking lot. Beyond that was a Taco McDonald’s and next to it an Chili’s Garden. She missed the days when there were more choices even in casual dining, but mergers were the only thing staving off an economic collapse. Every time she made the mistake of looking at the news, it seemed as though another airline was folding into one of the remaining behemoths. There were two channels left to watch television on, and one studio making movies. Prosecuting monopolies was something that happened back in the old days when capitalist competition was something worth fighting for. Now the only fight was against a different kind of scarcity. The other day in the supermarket, she heard someone commenting on how lettuce was unaffordable now that most of the producers of it were owned and operated by a single company based out of somewhere in the Middle East.

As much as she hated no longer being a woman of the world, she only saw two choices when it came to modern existence. Go mad or go blind. Back in her younger days, she was no stranger to protesting. To showing up at local town council meetings. To recycling and driving a hybrid car and buying only grass-fed beef. It wasn’t that she thought all of that would save the planet, but she assumed it would mean that later in life, if things did go belly up, she at least would be able to say she’d done her part. The pervasive guilt that still held her in its throes was a surprise. What did she have to feel guilty about? Wasn’t she a victim here? Wasn’t she spending what limited savings she had to be holed up in a hotel away from her home? Why did she still feel so responsible for everything?

The shower had plenty of hot water to throw at her, and she relished it as though it were baptizing her. The imaginary sins she’d committed falling onto aubergine tile and then casting themselves into the drain. She wrapped herself up in one of the four robes folded and lovingly placed under the sink. Her phone was charging in the other room, but she knew when she checked, she’d find a text message from her sister making sure that she was okay. It was possible her guilt came from having what little she did. Someone to check up on her. Money to stay in a room like this one. Options and opportunities regardless of how small they might be.

There were people with none of that. People down in the lobby right now who had even less than a suitcase full of dirty clothes to their name. When she looked at her phone, there were no messages. Her sister must have felt confident that she’d evacuated and was being assigned to one of those miserable cots. She’d call tomorrow and ask how the community center was this time around. Did they hand out apples or pears this time as a treat? The assumption must have been that she’d do the right thing, because didn’t she always?

Without giving herself time to second guess her decision, she threw on the clothes she’d just discarded in the bathroom, and left the room. She took the elevator back down to the lobby. It was somewhat quieter now that management had threatened to call the police on anyone who was trespassing. The only people left were the ones who could afford to purchase a spot on one of the couches far enough away from the reception area so as not to be an eyesore.

She walked up to one of the couches and found a woman holding a little girl around four or five-years-old. The woman was wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the UCLA logo on it, and the little girl was in pajamas that had two cartoon dogs on it. She tapped the woman on the shoulder lightly, but since it was unlikely the woman could get comfortable on the couch, she jolted awake immediately.

“This is our couch,” the woman said, “You can’t keep telling us to move. We paid for it. It’s not my fault the person who sold it to us left for the night. That doesn’t mean--”

“Oh,” she said, “No, I’m sorry. I just--I didn’t know if you’d rather stay in a room.”

The woman eyed her wearily. She didn’t blame her. The little girl was still asleep, but any more commotion and she’d inevitably wake up. She wanted to try and convince her mother that her intentions were good before that happened.

“You see,” she said, ready to lie, “I have a daughter your age, and a granddaughter, and I’d hate to think of them sleeping down on a couch like this. I only have one bed in my room, but I’m happy to give it to you if you want. I can sleep just about anywhere, so it makes more sense for me to stay down here, and let you get some rest tonight. I can’t imagine how exhausting this must all be with a child.”

As if on cue, the child began to rub her eyes. The mother looked down at the little girl, and then back at her. If she was suspicious, it might not matter when faced with the reality of an entire night down in the lobby.

“I don’t have any more money to give you,” the woman said, “I need to save some for food in the morning.”

“That’s all right,” she said, holding up her hands as though a flashlight were shining on her, “No charge. Again, I’m a mother and grandmother, so I understand. There’s no way I can go sleep upstairs knowing someone like you is down here.”

After she transferred her room key to the woman’s phone and waved away profuse thanks, she got on the couch and realized she’d be getting no sleep tonight. It wasn’t because she had just allowed a stranger to go into her room and sleep amongst her things. There was nothing there worth stealing anyway, aside from her phone charger and the designer sweater she’d haphazardly thrown into the suitcase when she was trying to think of what to pack.

She didn’t know why she’d lied about having a child, let alone a grandchild. It might have been because she didn’t think the woman would accept her kindness otherwise. Kindness needed to come from somewhere, didn’t it? An understanding of another person’s life or an admission of guilt. She knew she had enough guilt to make the lie sing. That must have been why the woman accepted her gift.

As she closed her eyes to gather rest if not sleep, the soda machines on the other side of the lobby hummed and whirred until they stopped making any noise at all. When she opened her eyes, all the lights were off, and several pairs of headlights were shining through the large wall of glass separating the lobby from the parking lot.

One pair seemed to be shining directly at her. She felt as though she’d been caught escaping prison. Now, it felt as though she wasn’t going anywhere.

There was really nowhere left to go.