Room at the Inn

Carson suspended the shovel from its hanger in the carport and let himself back into the house. His dad sat at the table with his Sudoku, just where Carson had left him half an hour ago. He pulled out a deck of cards and the gold tin that held their poker chips while Carson made sandwiches and poured two tall glasses of milk.

Just as he had yesterday and the day before that.

They had a routine. In the morning, after Julie fed him, Carson dressed and walked up to the house to harass his father in the guise of making him breakfast.

What are you up to today, Dad? The doctor says you need to be working that leg a little. Want me to drive you by the PT center so you can walk on the treadmill?

His father refused, ate the food Carson cooked him while complaining about it, took his vitamins while Carson watched. Carson cleaned the kitchen, started the laundry, and did whatever work was next on his to-do list for the house: moving the wood back into the carport where it belonged, chopping kindling, filling the bird feeders. Sometimes, Dad told him what needed doing. Most of the time, Carson just figured it out.

Then lunch while they played a few hands of poker, and Carson checked that Dad had a plan for dinner before he headed back to Julie’s to work on her ceiling. He was doing the lacquer now, a fussy job that needed a small brush and more delicacy than Carson had patience for.

He found the patience. If he hadn’t, the sealant would settle in every seam and crack, clogging up the detailed medallion pattern with gunk that would darken and age badly.

She came in to talk to him sometimes. Never for more than a few minutes. Always about the work. But Carson liked the work. He was happy to talk with her about it.

Dad, work, walk, dinner at the diner. He watched TV or read a book alone, he went to sleep. After almost three weeks in Potter Falls—ten days at Julie’s—the routine was easy. Comfortable, even. But it wasn’t helping anything. His dad moped around, and every day that went by, Carson felt more restless and caught.

He carried in the food and sat down at his father’s right hand.

“Supposed to get more snow tonight,” Martin said.

“I heard that. They’re talking about a record December.”

Martin grunted, shuffled the cards, and dealt. “Five-card stud. Nothing wild.”

Carson threw a chip into the middle of the table and stared at his cards without seeing them. He played by rote while he ate, not really trying to beat his father, not really wanting to lose. It just didn’t matter very much. Poker was Dad’s game, a ritual Carson participated in because it gave them something to do together.

“I walked through the shoe factory the other day.”

His father’s eyes drifted upward from the cards. “Who let you in?”

“Leo.”

“No shit.”

Leo had given him the key and left. Drop it by the office when you’re done, he’d said, but Carson had pocketed it. He wanted to go back. Leo knew where to find him if he needed to.

The shoe factory was amazing. Filthy, of course, the floor covered with shards of glass and ancient grease, strange collections of machinery and crumpled paper. But the main rooms were vast and reverberant, surprisingly bright.

Something young and long neglected inside Carson came alive inside those walls. Something that wanted.

“You ever been in there?” he asked.

“Sure. I worked in the warehouse.”

“When?”

“High school. After school, and one summer.”

“What’d you do?”

“Loaded shoe boxes on trucks, mostly.”

Carson mulled that over. It didn’t surprise him that his father had worked at the factory, though he never spoke of it. The building was part of the town, its beating pulse, long muffled.

“Julie wants to fix it up, you know,” Martin said.

“How’s that?”