Free The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

barrel. Handed Quoyle an ornate key stamped 999. There was a basket of windup penguins near the cash register and Quoyle bought one for each of the children. Bunny broke the wings off hers before they left the lobby. A wet path on the carpet.
    Room 999 was ten feet from the highway, fronted by a plate glass window. Every set of headlights veered into the parking lot, the glare sliding over the walls of the room like raw eggs in oil.
    The inside doorknob came off in Quoyle’s hand, and he worked it back carefully. He would get a screw from the desk clerk and fix it. They looked around the room. One of the beds was a round sofa. The carpet trodden with mud.
    â€œThere’s no coat closet,” said the aunt. “Mr. Mulroney must have slept in his suit.” Toilet and shower cramped into a cubby. The sink next to the television set had only one faucet. Where the other had been, a hole. Wires from the television set trailed on the floor. The top of the instrument looked melted, apparently by a campfire.
    â€œNever mind,” yawned the aunt, “it’s better than sleeping in the car,” and looked for a light switch. Got a smoldering purple glow.
    Quoyle was the first to take a shower. Discolored water spouted from a broken tile, seeped under the door and into the carpet. The sprinkler system dribbled as long as the cold faucet was open. Hisclothes slipped off the toilet lid and lay in the flood, for the door hooks were torn away. A Bible on a chain near the toilet, loose pages ready to fall. It was not until the next evening that he discovered he had gone about all day with a page from Leviticus stuck to his back.
    The room was hot.
    â€œTake a look at the thermostat,” said the aunt. “No wonder.” Caved in on the side as though smashed with a war club.
    Quoyle picked up the phone, but it was dead.
    â€œAt least we can have dinner,” said the aunt. “There’s a dining room. A decent dinner and a good night’s sleep and we’ll be ready for anything.”
    The dining room, crowded with men, was lit by red bulbs that gave them a look of being roasted alive in their chairs. Quoyle thought the coffee filthy, but at other tables they drank it grinning. Waited an hour for their dinner, and Quoyle, sitting with his fractious children, his yawning old aunt and gobs of tartar sauce on both knees, could barely smile. Petal would have kicked the table over and walked out. And she was with him again, Petal, like a persistent song phrase, like a few stubborn lines of verse memorized in childhood. The needle was stuck.
    â€œThanks,” murmured Quoyle to the waitress, swabbing his plate with a bun. Left a two-dollar bill under the saucer.
    The rooms on each side of them raged with crashings, howling children. Snowplows shook the pictures of Jesus over the beds. The wind screamed in the ill-fitted window frames. As Quoyle pulled the door closed, the knob came off in his hand again, and he heard a whang on the other side of the door, the other half of the knob dropping.
    â€œOh boy, this is like a war,” said Bunny watching a plywood wall shake. The aunt thought somebody must be kicking with both feet. Turned down the bedcovers, disclosing sheets stitched up from fragments of other, torn, sheets. Warren lapped water out of the toilet.
    â€œIt’s a little better than sleeping in the car,” the aunt said again. “A lot warmer.”
    â€œTell a story, Dad,” said Bunny. “You didn’t tell us a story for about a hundred years.”
    Sunshine rushed at Quoyle, grabbed his shirt, hauling herself up into his lap, thumb in her mouth before she even leaned against his chest where she could hear the creaking sounds of his breathing, the thump of his heart, gurglings and squeals from his stomach.
    â€œNot yet, not yet,” said Quoyle. “Everybody brush their teeth. Everybody wash their face.”
    â€œAnd say your prayers,” said the