Page 17 of Soft Flannel Hank

He hadn’t gone to the funeral, not because he hadn’t wanted to, but because Michael Kim’s funeral would have been full of people who would have asked him too many questions, exactly zero of which he’d been prepared to answer.

That seemed to be a theme.

Michael had done all of the work for the motel for as long as Hank had been alive. He had been a genius handyman. But for the last decade, a bad back had kept him from the heavier upkeep. And now he was gone. As Alice silently examined the roses, Hank looked closer at his surroundings. The desk needed to be sanded and revarnished. The wooden wall paneling was old. There was a water spot on the ceiling over the coffee maker. The tile grout was dingy.

The motel was showing its age. Just like Alice.

She had no business doing any of the hundreds of things it would take to bring the motel back to its potential, but Hank had helped his dad build houses before he became a police officer. Maybe he could help her.

“I’m sorry about Michael,” Hank said, feeling his voice crack. “He was a good man.”

Alice nodded, smiling softly. “He was.”

“But, Alice? I–I’m around. If you need anything.”

She turned her smile on him. “I’ll keep that in mind, Hank. That’s very kind.”

He nodded his head and turned to the door. As he gripped the knob, Alice said, “You’re a good man too, Hank.”

Hank didn’t reply. Words failed him. He nodded again and walked out into the drizzly morning.

He sat in his truck in the motel parking lot for a long time, watching the rain trickle down the windshield, trying not to think of what had happened not twelve hours before in this exact parking space.

He couldn’t go to the diner, where the memories of Esther were still so fresh. He couldn’t go home to the empty silence. Not after she’d pushed him down into his recliner and made him feel like he’d finally saved up enough for a return ticket back to the land of the living.

And it had all been a lie.

A man without a country, Hank found himself driving to Nadja’s office. As luck would have it, there had been a cancellation. She offered him the appointment. And while Hank could think of at least a dozen terrible things he’d rather do than sit in an oatmeal upholstered chair and talk about his feelings to a near stranger, he found himself gripping the armrests of that chair just the same.

Nadja took a long sip out of her mug, which was white with a picture of a donut holding a clipboard that said “Let’s talk about our fillings!”

“So you met Esther in the diner.”

Hank nodded.

“You drove her to the motel?”

He nodded again, feeling the muscle in his cheek twitch from clenching his jaw.

“Why?”

“Because it was late and I didn’t want her walking alone at night.”

Hank pictured Nadja writing “unfulfilled hero complex” in her elegant hand. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been told he had one. Marnie had bemoaned it constantly.

“Then what happened?”

“She kissed me.”

“On the cheek?”

Hank felt his ears turn red. He shook his head.

“Okay. Shekissed you, kissed you. What then?”

“We went to my house.”

“Were you intimate?”