Page 4 of The Vacancy In Room 10

I can’t do something like this again. I must have been out of my mind last night. I promise myself that I won’t do something like this again.

I wish more than anything that I kept that promise.

2

ANNA

Seven months later

A steamy July rain sizzles and pops off the hot pavement of the Gas ’N Go parking lot, and I know something bad is coming. It’s his silence that rattles me—the tremble in his voice when we spoke this morning. Why won’t he answer my calls?

A bearded trucker in a Pabst T-shirt places his Dr. Pepper on the counter, and I tap my foot impatiently as the cashier says they’re turning over shifts and he has to wait for the night guy to come in and switch registers. He nods outside, where a young man in a mullet, who must be the night guy, takes his time getting inside. I watch him flick the butt of his Winston Light behind the Polar Ice chest and eat the slimy end of a Slim Jim while he sits on a propane tank under the store awning and scrolls on his phone.

“Are you kidding me?” I mutter, but the trucker doesn’t make a fuss. He just lays a couple bucks in change on the counter, adjusts his ball cap and covers his face with one arm as he rushes back to his rig.

I check my phone. It’s seven minutes after five, so I assume Slim Jim guy is officially late, and I don’t have time for this. I put down the gas station wine and Henry’s favorite powdered mini donuts and sprint to my car.

I turn on the ignition—the pounding of the rain on the metal roof is deafening. I feel tears spring to my eyes, and I don’t know why, I just know something’s happened. It’s not like him to miss my calls. Ever. Certainly not all day. I punch the call icon under Henry’s name on my phone. It rings through. Shit.

I speed through glossy two-lane roads toward our house. I know things haven’t been good lately. He lost his teaching job. I’m between journalism jobs, but we’re fine. It’s a rocky patch is all. We’re not broke. We have prospects. He has more time for his own art, we’re spending more evenings together—dinners, right? It’ll be fine. I go over the pep talk in my head, so it’s ready when I find him.

When I get there, I take the stairs two at a time and fling open the door, rain soaked and breathless, and...nothing. I don’t know what I expected. An empty wine bottle is still on the coffee table and last night’s curry sits in greasy take-out boxes on top of the trash, and it’s so quiet the tick of the wall clock is startling.

I try to think of any reason Henry would not be picking up the phone. There could be a dozen reasons. It died, he lost it, he has it on silent by accident. Sometimes when he’s painting he’ll put it on silent, and I get that.

But it was the way he sounded before I left for work this morning. It wasn’t the same as his usual depression I’ve come to grow used to these last few months—it was a hollow sound—an emptiness when he spoke. And it’s not that he said anything alarming, just goodbye, see ya tonight, but something about it rattled me.

I check every room, and then I decide he must be at The Sycamores. Over a year ago, his friend suggested he rent one of the shitty apartments there that was sitting empty forever so he could use it as a painting studio, as we quickly ran out of room at our place for his work. He pays next to nothing for it and has spent most of his time there since he was laid off. I tell myself that has to be it. He took advantage of the rainy day, put headphones on and is lost in a painting. My gut feeling is just paranoia.

Before I can grab an umbrella out of the closet and run back out the door to set off to The Sycamores, my phone rings.

“Henry!” I say, breathless. Anger meeting desperate relief.

But he doesn’t say hello. I just hear the hiss of falling rain through the phone and then...sobbing.

“Oh, my God, honey, what the hell? What’s wrong?” I’ve known Henry since we were in college and heard him cry maybe three times in over fifteen years. I can’t imagine what’s happened.

There is silence on the other end again.

“What is it!? I’ve been trying to call all day, what’s happened?”

“Anna,” he whimpers, and then hiccuped cries stop him from speaking. “I can’t do it anymore.”

“What? What does that mean? Do what?”

“I’ve ruined everything. I messed up.”

“Henry, where are you? I’m gonna come and get you, and we can talk about it. It’ll be okay, just tell me where you are.”

“I’m so, so sorry. I love you, you know that. I did something, Anna. I need to tell the truth now. I fucked up our whole lives, and I’m so sorry, but I just can’t...I can’t do it anymore.”

“No, you didn’t... You... We can figure out whatever this is, okay?” I try to use a calm voice, but I’m so confused. This is coming out of nowhere, and I’m afraid he’ll hurt himself—that the last few months were worse than I ever knew, and he was this bad off. “Babe, please. It’s gonna be okay.”

“I did something unforgivable,” he sobs.

“Whatever it is...”

“No.” He stops me. “You don’t understand.” The saddest, most desperate cries I’ve ever heard escape his lips, and my heart breaks.

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