If it hadn’t been for a job repaneling a grain silo out here in the sticks last month, he would never have spotted this motel, thirty-some miles west of Junior’s school, set off an unmarked service road and stapled at the edge of the pines. It is squat and wide with boxy, blacked-out windows, like some giant, unpolished harmonica. So remote and seedy, it surprises him he’d never come across this place back in the day. He knows all too well what goes on behind the doors of a place like this, but the sign out front—a sheet of plywood zip-tied to a stake of rebar—offers rooms for only $39.99 a night.

The parking lot is a dump truck’s load of loose gravel raked out over dirt, making the tires crunch like a mouthful of cereal. At the end farthest from the motel’s office, a single vein of light runs between drawn curtains. This appears to be the only other occupied room tonight, two cars parked outside its door. The first is a late-’90s Neon, its rear bumper sutured in place by duct tape. Next to it is a Mustang that’s in even rougher shape, thanks to its owner’s novice hacks at souping it up. Rims look about as sturdy as tinsel and its spoiler, off-color and oversized, might as well have been nailed onto the trunk.

“Will there be TV?”

“You bet,” Henry says, parking outside the office. “C’mon, let’s go check in.”

The boy presses his stomach. “Can I wait here?”

Henry feels dangerously close to the one occupied room. The stretch of dark windows and loose gravel seems to compress as if by the sharp crank of a vise. Then again, it could all be in his head. So much has been lately, and so he says sure. That’s fine. He locks the truck and then double-checks the doors.

A bell jingles in the doorway, announcing Henry. A bike chain harnesses a box TV to the office ceiling. Watching it from behind the counter is a woman so overweight it’s impressive. To imagine her Henry-sized skeleton submerged and supporting the weight of another two of him, along with the strength it must take to endure such a constant burden, makes her every movement a feat. Her eyes, pressed into flapjack-batter cheeks, are stunning. They are jade and gentle and empty and he would recognize them anywhere. They belong to a person used to being invisible.

“Need a room, a forty-buck one will do,” he says. “And as far from that other group as possible.”

“You alone?”

His throat clears without his permission. He steals a glance back, and, thankfully, the office blinds are closed. “Just my lonesome.”

He lays a pair of twenties on the counter, and to them she says, “Whoa, buddy.”

“There a problem?”

“Sir,” she says. “You got to pay with a credit card. Security deposit and whatnot.”