The next day, I am again waiting for The Child to get ready, after sleeping in. I don’t mind too much, and though I long to show her the hotel waffle maker, she longs to sleep in, so I let her. We both slept well at the hotel the first night, but less well each night that followed, and it’s far easier to let her sleep into the morning than it would be to change hotels.

I wander outside, deciding to take some photos of the hotel for the online review I will eventually write. I start with the pool.

One of the two boys I met at breakfast sees me, the younger one, and comes over to talk. He asks me if I can unlock the pool, but since he’s a bit young to be swimming alone, and I am reluctant to supervise, I try to explain that he needs to get an adult, maybe his mother, to open the gate with her room key.

He tells me again, the pool is locked, and I tell him, I can’t open it, and finally he manages to get across to me that it isn’t just locked to him, it’s locked to everyone. They are doing maintenance. Maybe someone will open it later.

He’s waiting for that someone, in the parking lot, wearing his swim trunks, hotel towel slung over his shoulder.

When The Child was little, she loved the hotel pools too, and waited eagerly for us to take her there, but she hasn’t used this one since the night we arrived.

Do you live here? the boy wants to know.

My family lives here, I tell him. I’m visiting them for a week.

What room are they in? he asks.

Oh, they live in the town, I say, pointing past the pool. Over that way.

Where do you live then?

I live in Seattle, I tell him, but I can tell by the look on his face that he doesn’t understand what that means. It’s near the Pacific Ocean, do you know where that is?

He still doesn’t understand, and as I’m trying to think of a good way to explain it to him, he demands:  Do you have a house or not?

Yes, I reply.

He sits on the asphalt, towel on his lap, and begins picking at a piece of tar. It comes loose, and he peels it up.

Whose house is it? He wants to know.

My house, I explain.

He furrows his brow, regarding me carefully. Are you a landlord?

No, it’s my house and I own it and live in it.

He is perplexed. I ask where he lives.

We used to live with my mom’s friend but she kicked us out. So now we’re staying here.

His older brother approaches: Do you want to walk the cat?

I head back to my hotel room, but the card key doesn’t work, so I get a replacement at the front desk, and as I walk back to my room I see the boy, walking a large orange cat around a barren parking lot, toward the pool he can’t swim in right now, but maybe later.

I wake up in time for the hotel breakfast, but The Child is still sound asleep, so I head to the breakfast room. It is mostly empty, except for Fox News playing on a lone TV, so I make myself a waffle and read a newspaper online. I wish The Child were here; she loved the hotel waffle machine the last time she used one. It was a long time ago, but it’s a pleasant memory, and bringing a waffle back to the room for her wouldn’t be the same, especially since it’s against hotel rules, and would probably be accompanied by a warning.

The official breakfast hours end, but nobody asks me to leave or begins clearing the room. A woman comes in, talking on her phone, followed by two boys; they sit at the table farthest from me. The woman continues her conversation, but the boys get up to get breakfast, passing my table on their way to the waffle maker. The younger boy doesn’t notice me, but the older boy stops at my table.

He looks at me intently, then asks, as politely as anyone has ever addressed me, Are you having a good day so far?

I tell him I am, and ask how his day is, and he tells me: Just fine, ma’am.

I take my coffee and leave the breakfast room to the brothers, who play games on their cell phones as they eat.

We arrive at the hotel, but can’t find it: We go to the spot where GPS dot says it is, behind the local curling club and the signs for other hotels, but we still don’t see it. After circling through several pothole-ridden parking lots, we simply pull up to one of the hotels, and ask at the front desk, and are directed to the back of the building.

It turns out that we’re at the right place. Our hotel was a different hotel until recently, and is now being renovated. We wait patiently in the crowded temporary reception area, as the line of people ahead of me complain about their rooms, or request extra towels for the pool, which isn’t indoors as I had thought. It is outside, sandwiched between an asphalt parking lot and an empty field, behind a chain link fence.

My cousin says he’ll wait, just in case.

By the time I get to the front of the line, The Child has decided we aren’t staying there, and I have realized we are; everything is prepaid, and I cannot afford a second hotel bill. I ask the desk clerk what we should do about that if our plans change – you know, family – and she nods and smiles and says we can arrange a refund for nights we don’t use. The Child wants to go elsewhere now, but I am too tired, and point toward the pool.

If we don’t like it, we’ll go elsewhere tomorrow. Or maybe the next day, since tomorrow is July 4.

Our room is serviceable, at best, but it’s fine by me, so my cousin takes off in his vintage Trans Am, leaving me a serviceable Saturn, in case I want to go somewhere.

I don’t.

We sit in the hotel room for a while, and I send a message to my one local friend, who I’ve known since second grade in New York City, and who somehow landed here as a college professor. He drives over, and gamely sits with me at the hotel pool, chatting and swatting mosquitos and watching The Child do handstands in the pool, until finally we are all exhausted and call it a night.

We sleep well, and the next night watch fireworks over the lake with my cousin, singing patriotic songs with people we’ve never met, making room on the grass so that everyone has a place to sit, just as they made room for us when we arrived, without so much as a blanket to sit on.