Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 12

944 Death's Door

Death's Door

You haven't felt helpless until you've stood outside a door marked Ladies–with your soulmate and the man who raised you–waiting to find out if your mother keeled over and died in a truck stop bathroom stall.

I mean, she was probably fine, but...

"I'll go in," Ziggy said, after the waiting became too much for him.

"Why you?" I asked.

"Because I'm the only one of us who'll dare to do it," he said reasonably. "Look, we haven't seen a woman go in or out in over five minutes. She's probably alone in there so I'm not going to freak anyone out by my presence."

Remo and I eyed each other over the top of Ziggy's knit-cap covered head. "I suppose."

"We'll warn any women who come along that you're in there," Remo told him.

Ziggy pushed open the door and called out, "Claire? I'm coming to make sure you're all right."

The door swung shut behind him and the helpless feeling swirled back in, like water refilling a toilet bowl.

She had insisted we stop. She had begun to feel nauseous and whether that was because of the chemicals from her treatment or regular old carsickness, who knows. She'd been in the midst of a fight with Remo, that had erupted when she'd tried to tell him how to drive, and you know how annoying a backseat driver can be. I wouldn't have put it past her to feign illness to win an argument.

But if she wasn't really ill, she'd been in there an awfully long time.

Remo cursed and pulled his pager out of his coat pocket. It looked and sounded like a battery-powered travel shaver.

"Business?" I asked. We were still in business hours, after all.

He sighed. "Yeah. Melissa's going to give me the business. I better go call her, quick."

"The pay phones were over there." I pointed back toward the door we'd come through from the parking lot.

He hurried off and I went back to staring at the LADIES sign. This was a truck stop in rural Tennessee. I got the feeling very few "ladies" (or gentlemen, for that matter) had ever set foot in that spot.

Come on, Ziggy, I thought. What's happening in there? I had to trust him. If he needed help or a doctor or something he would've come tearing right back out. If he needed me to do something, he would've come and said so. He knew I was waiting out here. Therefore I needed to just keep on waiting.

Eventually the door creaked open, and Ziggy emerged with Claire leaning heavily on him. She was just about his size when she wasn't wearing heels–I think that meant she had shrunk an inch or two.

"Get us a booth?" Ziggy suggested and I ran ahead to the diner-like portion of the truck stop. I waved at the guy behind the counter who took the orders–I hesitate to call him a "waiter"–and he waved me toward whatever table I wanted. It was not crowded at that hour and there was no shortage of places to sit, but I went through my mind where I thought she'd approve of, not too close to the kitchen door, not in the direct sun, etc. etc.

I picked one and the guy brought over a small stack of napkins and some silverware. "How many?"

"Four," I said, and he left the random pile of silverware and four laminated cardboard menus on the table.

Ziggy and Claire arrived a minute later. He helped her into the booth seat and then slid in next to her.

"Where's Remo?" she asked, her voice a bit faint.