Our very first Marriott was a Courtyard just outside of Champaign. Getting Ethan into a room late at night was, as with most everything involving him, a tricky proposition. I had called earlier and in a hushed voice explained that before checking in, I needed to go straight to the room because I had a sleeping infant with me. I had decided to use the word infant instead of child or even baby, believing it had more impact. I had given this considerable thought.
Sure enough, a clerk was patiently waiting for us in front of room 117 at ten thirty, the appointed time. She was a tall blonde and still sorority-perky despite the hour. I was fully anticipating her confused and concerned look when she saw me in the hallway with nineteen-year-old Ethan and not the swaddling newborn she had been expecting.
I offered no explanation. “Hello.”
“Oh. Hi.” She took a few steps back.
“Dark. Outside,” Ethan mumbled. He was essentially sleepwalking.
The girl rebounded, her Delta Gamma instincts kicking in. “Sure is!” she said. Her eyes were resolutely big and bright, and it was apparent that she was trying to act normal, something people felt compelled to do when first confronted with Ethan.
“It sure is,” I said.
She stared at us, her big smile growing.
“The key,” I finally said.
“Oh. Right, I’m so sorry.” She handed it to me. “We only had a room with a king left. I’m sorry.”
“That’s fine.” I gave her my credit card and said I would pick it up in the morning.
“Have a good night!” she said.
“You have a great one.”
I opened the door and led Ethan to the bed where I took off his shoes and clothes and asked him if he had to go pee-pee.
“Went.”
I thought he might be interested in the hotel room, but his face was already in the pillow.
“You sure?” I asked. “You want to see the bathroom? It’s different. Different bathroom, whole new toilet, probably whole new flushing mechanism.”
He closed his eyes. “Leave. Now.” This was his heartfelt way of saying good night. Like his mother, he could be very direct.
“Okay, I’ll leave now.” But I didn’t leave. I sat on the edge of the bed, smoothed his black, rumpled hair with my hand, and studied him. Despite his age, he still looked like the child he would always be. Upturned nose, smooth skin, large dark eyes that took in a world he didn’t always understand. Watching him fall asleep, I saw no hint of the demons—the frustration, the anxiety, the fears—that constantly plagued him. Today had been a good day, a strangely calm day. He did not do well with change and transitions, so I had expected the worst. He had surprised me though. Tomorrow might be entirely different—tomorrow could easily be the worst day of our lives—but with Ethan, today, now, that moment, was all that mattered. I bent down and kissed him on the forehead.
“Thanks for being a good guy today.”
“Leave. Now.”
“Right.”
I stood and stretched my back before unpacking my laptop and ever-present bottle of Jim Beam. I poured myself a small snort, pulled out my brand-new, old-school Rand McNally road atlas, and sat down to review our route.
Rather than proceed straight south through Illinois, I had decided to head due east and spend the next night in Indianapolis before turning south toward Louisville. I was looking forward to that particular stop. Kyle Baker, a neighbor of ours, played college basketball there, and Ethan (and secretly I) worshipped him. Other than possibly the wedding, seeing him and Kyle together again was going to be the highlight of the trip.
I pondered the route awhile longer, worried that Indianapolis wasn’t far enough, but decided to proceed anyway. We had time. I next went online to confirm our reservations at the Marriotts in Indianapolis and Louisville, then poured myself a second drink.
My planned late-night driving strategy was certainly going to put a crimp in my two-drinks-a-day bourbon prescription. Life with Ethan had made alcohol a necessity, a medication I carefully rationed. Two drinks, I coped; three drinks, I was drunk. And I didn’t want to become a drunk.
I sipped on number two slowly, and found my way to the girls’ Facebook pages, stopping at Karen’s first. There was not much new there. Just a comment about being seven days away from the Big Day. No new photos, no new comments from her. This wasn’t entirely surprising, considering she was getting married in a week and things were no doubt, hectic. I studied a photo of her and Roger taken last year somewhere in Spain or Austria or Greece, someplace that offered the perfect photo op. Both thin, athletic, smiling, confident. Karen, her blond hair pulled back, looked especially happy, her pretty face fully revealed to the camera. Like her mother, she was a quiet and guarded person, but in this photo at least, she seemed to be stepping out from behind something. I had had my doubts about Roger—I feared him a phony—but if she was happy, then I supposed I was happy.