I actually did have to use the bathroom, and my leg actually was hurting. I eased down my jeans, rubbing the right leg after I’d sat down. There was a faint red spiderweb pattern above my right knee, extending to my upper thigh. I’d had my right side to the window when the lightning came in.

When I rejoined Tolliver, the food had come, and I was able to keep busy eating it. When we went out to the car, Tolliver slid into the driver’s seat. It was his turn. I suggested a book on tape; at the last secondhand bookstore we’d visited, I’d gotten three. Unabridged, of course. I popped in a Dana Stabenow novel, leaned back, and walled my brother off. No, I wasn’t walling him off; I was walling myself in.

Tolliver had booked one room in the motel in Doraville. At the desk, I could see that he was waiting for me to tell him to ask for another one, since I’d been acting so standoffish.

We’d often shared a room in the past few years of traveling together. At first, we hadn’t had enough money for two rooms. Later, sometimes we wanted our privacy, and sometimes we didn’t care. It had never been an issue. I wouldn’t let it be an issue now, I decided recklessly. I didn’t know how long we could trudge on down this dreary road without Tolliver blowing up and demanding an explanation I couldn’t give him. So we’d room together, and I’d just have to be uncomfortable in silence. I was getting used to that.

We took in our bags. I always took the bed closest to the bathroom; he got the one by the window. It was a variation on the same room we’d seen over and over again: slick polyester bedspreads, mass-produced chairs and table, television, beige bathroom. Tolliver got busy on his cell phone, while I stretched out on the bed and turned on CNN.

“She wants us to come by at eight tomorrow morning,” he said, getting a pencil out of his bag and folding the morning’s newspaper open to the crossword puzzle. Sooner or later, he’d break down and learn how to work sudoku, but he was sticking with his crossword pretty faithfully.

“Then I’d better run now,” I said, and I noticed he didn’t move for a few seconds, his pencil poised over the puzzle. We often ran together, though Tolliver usually took off toward the end of our exercise so he could go full-out. “It’ll be too cold in the morning, even if I get up at five.”

“You okay running alone?”