Page 22 of Do Not Disturb
His eyes widen. “Well, this will be a challenge.”
To his credit, he still seems game to help me. Rosalie’s boots sink into the deep white powder as we make our way very slowly over to the diner where I parked my car. When I explain that we have to walk all the way around the restaurant to my parking spot, Nick seems a bit surprised, but he goes along with it without questioning me why I would do something like that. He’s got a shovel, and I’ve got one in the trunk of my car. But with each step, I’m realizing how impossible this is going to be. We are going to need to shovel the length of a football field to get me out of here.
When we get around the side of the restaurant, Nick squints into the whiteness. “Where is your car? I don’t see it.”
I don’t see it either. Shit, where did my car go?
But then I see the big mound of snow behind the dumpster, and I notice a little patch of the blue side mirror. That’s my car. It’s just been buried. I would have hoped the restaurant might shield it from some of the snow, but this seems more consistent with my luck recently.
“It’s over there,” I say.
Nick and I make our way over to that immense pile of snow that covers my car. When we get there, he has to steady himself on the hood of my car. “Jesus, this is a lot of snow,” he comments.
“Thanks for helping me,” I say.
“Yeah,” he breathes. “Well… let’s get to it.”
He helps me clear off the trunk so that I can pop it open and get my own shovel as well as the ice scraper—a crucial tool for any New England winter. And then the two of us get to work.
It’s slow going. There is alotof snow on my car. And surrounding my car. And surrounding the area surrounding my car. I’m seriously discouraged, but Nick doesn’t complain. He just keeps shoveling snow around my car.
“Thanks for your help,” I say. “Really. I appreciate it so much.”
He flashes me a smile. “No problem. Happy to help.”
“I’m sure most owners of motels don’t help their guests shovel snow.”
He laughs. “Well, we’re a full-service motel.” He blinks up at me. “And if you need to stay longer, you’re welcome to. We can, you know, work out a discount rate or something.”
He’s figured out money is tight for me. But the reason I’m not staying has nothing to do with the money. And anyway, from the looks of his crumbling motel, he’s in no position to be offering anyone a discount. “Thanks,” I mumble.
“And the food won’t be any better,” he continues cheerfully, “but at least there’s plenty of it. Like that joke about the restaurant where the customers complain the food is so terrible? And then they say, ‘And the portions are so small!’” When I don’t crack a smile, he adds, “You know, because why would you want a big portion if the food is terrible, right?”
I nod. “Yeah…”
He clears his throat. “Sorry, I’m just trying to get you to cheer up. I don’t think I told that joke very well.”
I manage a very tiny smile, just for his sake. I’m not feeling it though. “Don’t worry about it. Whatever food you give me is fine.”
“Like I said, my wife was the cook.” Again, he’s talking about her in the past tense. “It’s just hard for her now.”
Despite the cold, I wipe some sweat off my brow. Shoveling is hard work. On top of everything else, I’m going to be sore in all my muscles tomorrow. “So… this was her restaurant?”
Nick glances behind him at the boarded up building. “Yeah, it was. That was always her dream. To have her own restaurant. And for a while, it was doing really well. Reallyreallywell, considering it’s just a tiny rest stop on the side of the road.”
“What happened?” I blurt out.
He looks surprised by my question. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked, but we’ve been shoveling for over an hour. We’ve bonded through our manual labor.
“Well,” he says, “she got sick.” He hesitates a moment. “She has MS. Multiple sclerosis. She has this progressive subtype, and it’s just been downhill the last five years. She can’t even walk anymore, and I’ve been mostly taking care of her.”
“Oh no,” I murmur. “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.” But there’s a part of me that’s relieved he didn’t confess his wife has paranoid schizophrenia. Instead, she is too impaired to even leave her house. It doesn’t sound like there’s any reason to be afraid of her, even if she’s the jealous type.
“I wanted her to keep running the restaurant,” he says. “I said we could pay to modify the kitchen so she could use it in a wheelchair. But she never wanted to. She’s just stuck on wanting to do things the way she’s always done them, and if she can’t…”
“People can be stubborn.”
He nods. “I get that it’s hard for her. I’m not saying I would’ve taken it well if the same thing happened to me. But she could still do everything she used to do if she wanted to. Instead, she doesn’t want to doanythinganymore. She just stays in the house all day, even though she’s going crazy in there. It’s drivingmecrazy.”
