We Are Okay

In a haze, Marin arrives at the airport. She tells the woman at the ticket counter that she has a reservation but doesn’t know her flight number. When asked to spell her name, she apologizes and says she cannot. Internally, she replays her interview with the police. They find her flight, for which she is two weeks early, and get her onto an earlier one.

In New York, Marin wilts in the heat. She takes a bus from the airport and gets off at the first motel she sees. The room is dirty and damaged, and the smell is “worse than stale. Worse than unclean” (181). In the room next door, the woman starts howling. Hungry, Marin walks to the diner next door to eat. When she returns to the motel, she asks her neighbor to let her know if he sees an old man outside of her room. Three nights later, she starts hearing a tapping noise coming from the ceiling and starts to feel as though Gramps is haunting her. She can hear him humming and singing every time she turns on the faucet, so she “[stops] using the water” (183). Day after day, she walks across the street to the diner and eats, otherwise staying in her room, suffering and trying to convince herself that she’s okay.