I’m 76 now, and some nights, the memory of those empty motel rooms is so vivid, I can almost smell the stale coffee and see the faint ring on the bedside table where a glass once sat. Not *my* glass, mind you. Always left things tidy. But the imprint of someone else’s life, even a fleeting one… that was the comfort. The absence of my own, really. I worked sales, pharmaceuticals, for decades. The kind of job where you were always on the road. And I volunteered for every overnight trip. EVERY one. My wife, bless her, she’d ask, “Another trip, honey? So soon?” And I’d mumble something about quotas, about having to hit the ground running for the big accounts. Which was true, in a way. The travel stipend helped. Every dollar was accounted for, especially after the mill shut down and we had to stretch every penny just to keep the lights on and food on the table. Practical concerns, you see. Always practical. But the real reason… it wasn't about the money. Not entirely. It was the escape. The relief that washed over me when I’d turn the key in that cheap motel door, knowing I had a night, maybe two, of perfect, unadulterated solitude. No expectations. No gentle touch that felt like a question I couldn’t answer. No soft sigh in the dark that seemed to ask for a part of me I simply didn’t have to give. I realize now it was a form of emotional circumvention. A way to avoid the deep current of intimacy, the demand for… what’s the word? Reciprocal vulnerability. I just couldn’t. It felt like standing too close to a roaring fire, the heat too intense, the light too revealing. The road became my sanctuary. The hum of the engine, the changing landscapes, the anonymity of strangers in truck stops and diners. It was a kind of anhedonia, I suppose. A profound inability to experience pleasure in the usual ways, so I sought it in absence. In the quiet. In the distance. I’d call home, of course, dutifully. “Everything okay, dear?” “Just checking in.” Keeping it brief. Efficient. Never letting the silence on the line stretch long enough for anything truly… meaningful to emerge. Like a surgeon, precise with the cut, minimizing the bleeding. She's gone now, for a good long while. And sometimes, in the quiet of this house, the very quiet I once craved, it feels different. Not peaceful, not exactly. More like a hollow echo. A vast, empty space where something should have been. I look at my hands, gnarled with age, and wonder if I ever truly held hers, not just physically, but… truly. And I remember those motel rooms, the scent of antiseptic cleaner and the faint, almost imperceptible film of dust on the lamp shade. And I think, did I waste it? All that travel, all that avoidance. Did I leave behind more than just a changed bedsheet? I don't know. The question itself feels like a weight.