Page 211 - Reason To Sing by Kelita Haverland

Chapter Thirty-Five

at the only local motel. He waits, making sure we have a room
for the rest of the night.
Without many words between us, exhausted and dazed,
Hudson and I devise a vague plan as we fall into bed. Lying
in silence, I try to relax my shaken body enough to feel safe.
My head isn’t able to do the same. I stare up at the ceiling. My
life is spinning out of control, and I just hit the ditch! I’m in a
dumpy motel in some armpit of a prairie town named after a
moose! I’m two thousand miles away from home lying next to
a person that I no longer love and actually fear. And to top it
off, our only mode of transportation is a sorry, crumpled mess,
leaving us stranded.
Yet even in this present state, I manage to tap into the
grateful overflow swirling around in the other part of my heart.
I am alive! I have no broken bones. I walked away from that
accident tonight without even a scratch. There must be a reason.
There just has to be. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
After three hours of tossing and turning, fighting (and
failing) to find any kind of decent sleep, we both wake up.
Dragging himself out of bed, Hudson pulls the Yellow Pages
out of the nightstand. He calls the Greyhound bus depot
and by 9AM he is heading out the door to catch the first bus
to Brandon, Manitoba. This is the closest place we can rent
another vehicle. It’s going to be a three hour round trip if the
bus isn’t on the milk-run. Better him than me going, that’s for
sure. I am utterly drained.
As the door closes behind him, I am up and out of bed in
a flash. Peering through the curtains, I make sure Hudson is
gone. I can’t reach for the phone fast enough. I dial zero.
“Hello, Operator.” Her voice is robotic.
“Yes, Operator, I’d like to make a collect call to Toronto.”
My heart is racing.

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