I force myself to look away and concentrate on what’s in front of me. What I see now is what my sister saw two years ago—this wide street, tall gray stone buildings, lush green trees. I step out of the car. What was in her head when she walked down the stairs of the bus onto this concrete sidewalk? Joy? Relief ? Excitement? Sadness? I breathe in the clear morning air and try to imagine what it would feel like to be Nina arriving in this very spot. I reach up and touch my hair, imagine it ocean blue. I stand up straight and tip my head slightly back the way Nina always did. I close my eyes. When I open them, I notice there’s a slightly crumbling community bulletin board in a grassy clearing about fifteen feet away, perfectly placed as to be directly in the line of vision of anyone getting off the bus. I walk toward it. It’s covered in colored fliers: ads for a cheap motel, for restaurants and coffee houses, for rooms for rent and people looking for roommates. And up at the very top of the bulletin board are a few permanent ads behind glass. Rocky Mountain Tours—See Denver With the People Who Know It Best. Keep Denver Beautiful—Get a Tattoo at Bijoux Ink. 2740 Colfax Avenue. Bijoux. I stop, reach my hand out, and touch the thick glass.
Bijoux. As in “Bijoux wheere aaaaare yooou?” And I know it seems crazy, but I suddenly have this flash and I feel like I can picture perfectly how it must have gone: Nina standing here, new to this city, fresh off a fifteen-hour bus ride, and she reached out and she touched this sign, just like I’m doing now, in a city of unfamiliar people and unfamiliar things, this comforted her, she saw this and she thought yes. I can feel this yes coursing through my body as if it were coming from inside me. Maybe I think this because of some special connection I still have to my sister. Maybe after all this time the strength of our bond can cross space and time and I can understand one thought she might have had, even though I cannot understand them all.
Or maybe I just think this because I’m tired, and slightly delusional because of how badly I want this to be true.
I guess there’s only one way to find out.
Fifteen
But first, we need sleep.
Sean and I drive to the closest motel, a run-down place that rents rooms by the hour. And now the woman behind the counter stands in front of us, the room key dangling from her skinny index finger. “And you’re sure you kids are over eighteen, right?” She raises one heavily penciled eyebrow and nods slowly.
“Of course,” Sean says, nodding back.
“Okay, good.” She hands him a key on a white plastic Travel Route Inn key chain. “Checkout is tomorrow morning at ten. Continental breakfast is served until nine.” She looks at Sean, then at me, then back at Sean. “If you’re up by then.” And then she smirks like she knows something about why we’re here and what we’re up to. And even though what she thinks she knows is wrong, I blush.
We walk back outside, up a small set of concrete stairs and into the room. It smells like mold in here, and someone’s bad breath. There are two twin beds covered in sad floral comforters and in between them there’s a small chipped nightstand and above the small nightstand is a framed picture of what I think is supposed to be a pineapple made by someone who has obviously never seen one.
“Honey, we’re home,” Sean says. He pulls back the covers on one of the beds and crawls in, still wearing all his clothes. Before I’ve even taken off my shoes, I can hear the slow rhythmic breathing of sleep. I look over at him. His lips are parted and his face is relaxed. His eyelashes brush against his cheeks. My heart squeezes. He looks different to me now, just ever so slightly different than he did yesterday. I cannot explain this and I don’t understand. All I know is I suddenly feel like I could sit here and watch him all day. But instead I change into some of the clothes I tossed in the bag with me last night and force myself to get in bed. Within minutes, I am sleeping, too.
Sixteen