Following that, the only sound was the television: the closest they ever got to silence. The two older boys were watching some awful program that crossed Gomer Pyle with Lost in Space. They were stretched out, one on each bed, hands behind their heads and elbows anchoring both sets of pillows, legs spread wide so that their sneakers nearly reached the corners. Frankie had pulled a chair over to the dresser to sit next to his fish and was studying them. There was a boing! and a doink! from the TV set, and Roy heard the low hiss of his wife’s voice from behind the closed bathroom door, though he couldn’t make out a word.

Some of the bickering had been about who would sleep where, and after watching Matt and Joe do their bed-hogging routine, Roy accepted the fact that they were actually here, and that they were going to need roll-aways. Two of them. Which meant talking to the knothead at the front desk again. He stepped between the beds, picked up the phone, and dialed. He counted eight rings before hanging up, then dialed again and let it ring eight more times. The boys were ignoring him. The sky beyond the rain-spattered window was turning from dark gray to black, and the wind was picking up. It looked to him as if the front window was starting to waffle. He hung up, crossed the room, and tugged on the nylon string, drawing the curtain over the glass. Then he switched on the floor lamp next to the door.

The room seemed to close in around the lamplight. He pictured the two roll-aways eating up floor space, and felt the walls inching forward.

Of course, they could have gotten a second room; the motel was cheap and nearly empty. But Roy had very much wanted to stay on the island and he’d lost that fight, so he wasn’t going to budge on this one. They would all just have to suffer one another’s company, and he would have to suffer right along with them.

The bathroom door opened abruptly. Teresa’s voice shot forth like air from a pump rifle: “No!” The door closed again.

Matt and Joe exchanged glances across the beds. Frankie leaned in until his nose was against the fishbowl and whispered something to the fish.

An air conditioner wheezed beneath the hem of the curtain. There was an odor: a vague animal smell of rot, and Roy realized as he crossed the room again that it was the softening ground beef in the ice chest. Around that, the room itself smelled like an empty frying pan someone had forgotten to take off the burner.