The moment I opened the hotel room door, the heat hit me like something alive.
Not a little warm. Not uncomfortable in the way hotel rooms sometimes get when the air conditioner struggles. This was thick, trapped, suffocating heat, the kind that slams into your face like an oven door opening…. Continue Reading
The curtains were pulled shut. The air conditioner was off. The tiny digital thermostat on the wall blinked eighty-nine degrees like it had been trying to warn someone for hours.
For one terrifying second, I thought the room was empty.
Then I heard a small, broken voice from behind the bed.
“Mom?”
My heart stopped.
“Lily?”
My eight-year-old daughter crawled out from the narrow space between the mattress and the wall. Her cheeks were bright red. Her hair was damp and stuck to her forehead. Her lips looked dry, cracked, almost pale at the edges. She was still wearing the yellow sundress I had put on her that morning before I left for what was supposed to be a quick emergency pharmacy run.
