It’s a noise I’ve heard in R-rated movies and a couple of uncomfortable nights when Mom and Pop were in a certain kind of mood, since I unfortunately share a wall with their bedroom. That kind of noise.

Don’t be silly, I tell myself. It’s a hotel. There are bound to be occasional sexy times noises in a hotel. But it sounds . . . close. It almost sounds like it’s coming from Mom and Abby’s room.

I go to the door, which is open a crack, and I peer inside.

It’s dark in the room, the only light spilling in through a small wedge of window, the rest entirely blocked by curtains. But I can see well enough to make out a figure in the middle of my mother’s bed. A woman.

A woman with blond hair.

Wearing her new white robe with red-and-black flowers on it. Straddling a dark-haired man.

Her back is to me, but of course I know who it is.

My mother.

Chapter 13

13

Everything in my brain screeches to a halt. It’s horrible, and it’s definitely scarring me for life, but I can’t tear my gaze away from the strangers on the bed. No, I correct myself. Not strangers. My mother, on the bed, acting like she’s having sex.

Because she is having sex.

My mother is having sex. With someone who is not Pop.

I finally manage to unfreeze myself and back away. They haven’t seen me. From their angle they can’t see the door to the adjoining room. They don’t know I’m here.

I creep slowly, carefully, to the door leading out. I open it with such excruciating slowness that it feels like it takes five full minutes. Then I’m outside on the long outdoor walkway, and everything feels like a different world out there. Blue sky stretches overhead, not a cloud in it. People stroll around in bathing suits and saris and wrapped in fluffy white towels. Birds sing in the trees. Kids laugh and race each other and parents yell, “Slow down!”

The door shuts behind me with the tiniest, softest click.

I stand there like I’ve been turned to stone.

Everything that I was most afraid of—the worst thing that I could possibly imagine—is happening. It has happened. It’s over, I think, although I don’t know what the it is that I’m referring to.

Mom and Pop.

My childhood, perhaps.

Happiness in general.

Someone comes out of the room next door. It’s not Mom—she’s still busy, I imagine, but the sudden noise and movement jolts me into action. I can’t stay here. I can’t be here. I have to go.

So I start running.