Safe Enough
by Tracie Adams
Author’s Note: This story is part of a collection I’m currently writing called Stories from the Lighthouse Motel. The narrator is a teenager on the run with her mother from their home on the Louisiana bayou. They’ve arrived at a roadside motel in a small Virginia town, which the teenager perceives as city life compared to her life on the bayou. These women carry a hard-earned independence. With the men in their lives gone, they’ve had to survive by relying on one another and making their own way. Music becomes an expression of who they are and how they endure, revealing their histories, their defenses, and the complicated bond between them. Through the narrator’s voice, the roadside motel, and the women who arrive there, I hoped to echo the grit, vulnerability, and outsider spirit associated with Eagle Pennell’s art and life.
Mama pulls into the gravel lot and kills the engine.
"We here?" I yawn from the back seat.
"For now."
Them two words followed us through Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee. Places I slept through with a pillow over my head ‘cuz Mama never gets sick of Lucinda Williams on autorepeat at full volume. If I never hear “Changed the Locks” again it’ll be too soon, but I know better than to say that to Mama. We’d stop and eat, sleep a night, maybe two if it felt safe.
The old Buick LeSabre ticks and cools around us. Everything we own is packed inside it—three black trash bags full of clothes, a blanket that smells like home, and a cardboard box Mama won't let me touch. She sits real still, both hands grippin’ the wheel. The hush that haunts her haunts me too. All the way here to Virginia.
The motel squats beside the highway like an old lady too tired to git up. Them bricks is the color of stale cornbread left out on the counter too long. The doors might've been blue when the dinosaurs roamed, but now they’s washed-out gray like driftwood. Still, I kinda dig the lighthouse sign from the disco days, the way the neon flutters like one tired eyelid that won’t stay open.
A shiny red car rolls in beside us. Out steps this city slicker who looks like she done survived some stuff. She’s ready for battle. You know the type—all honey bright hair, miniskirt, janglin’ jewelry.
"Well," Mama don’t even bother to whisper. "Ain't she somethin'."
The woman smiles and waves wrist-elbow-wrist, I swear like she in a parade or somethin’. Me and Mama watch her unload matchin’ pink suitcases from the trunk and backseat, like watchin’ clowns pop outta a Volkswagen.
Just when we’re enjoyin’ the show, the office door opens and a man comes out wipin’ his hands on his jeans. This guy kills the vibe with his tired eyes and slumped shoulders like he’s carrying somethin’ heavy can’t nobody else see. He smiles at Miss Virginia. She smiles back. Mama rolls her eyes. So do I. Drama don’t care where you come from.
We follow them inside. A little bell dings over the door, soundin’ surprised to see us. The office smells like old coffee, mildew, and one of them plug-in air fresheners.
"You got a room for these tired old bones?" Miniskirt bats her fake eyelashes so hard I feel a breeze.
Sad Man perks up, laughs. Mama don’t. He hands over a key, says real loud and proud that it’s the one and only suite. “For the sweet,” he adds. I swear to Gawd the man takes a bow.
Mama's face changes. Sometimes it happens quick, like lightnin’, sometimes slow like a storm rollin’ across the bayou. This is somewhere in between.
"I called earlier," Mama says. "That suite was supposed to be ours." She looks at me then at Miniskirt’s pile of pink then crosses her arms. She don’t say another word, just nods at Sad Man like it’s clear as creek water before rain that teenagers need more space than a pile of dang Mary Kay.
The room shrinks. The man looks like he hopes the floor will swallow him whole. Mama’s eyes are empty. I remember one time after Daddy’d been gone for months, I asked if she was lonely. She said nah, more like sad. She said sad was when you miss yourself and she’d been sad long before she ever met Daddy.
"We've been sleeping in the car," Mama mumbles.
I stare at my shoes. I hate when people know that.
The woman’s face softens. "Oh, honey."
She keeps sayin’ sorry, but I notice she ain’t givin’ the key back. I also notice her hands shakin’ and some pill bottles in her purse. We all sorry about somethin’ I reckon. Mama’s pretendin’ she don’t care but she’s grinding her teeth down to nubs. The man shuffles keys around, tries to fix it. I’m tryin’ to figure if we’re safe here. I watch eyes, hands, the way they say our names, the questions they ask. The way they look at Mama and me.
We end up in Room 14. It ain’t nothin’ fancy but it’s real beds and a hot shower. Mama falls asleep with her shoes on. I curl up beside her and listen to trucks moan down the highway. The walls are thin as Saltines. I hear Miniskirt next door moving around, the pipes rattlin’ and somebody downstairs pacing.
Mama's breathin’ changes sometime after midnight. I reach for her hand. "We okay, Mama?"
She squeezes my fingers. "We gonna be just fine, baby girl."
Next door, Miniskirt’s been flushin’ that toilet every hour. I think about them pills. Poor boomer must be sick. Downstairs, Sad Man has smoked a pack of Marlboros in the parking lot and just about wore a hole in the sidewalk. Mama’s cryin’ in her pillow.
I shove the earbuds in and Blaze Foley’s “If I Could Only Fly” almost helps me forget my trash bag-cardboard-box-life while neon dances on the ceiling. Reminds me of the lava lamp I left in Louisiana, along with all traces of Daddy and home and whatever it is me and Mama are runnin’ from. The song ends. The quiet hurts. I think about that poor sick woman who said she was sorry. Sad Man who wished he could help us but can’t even help hisself.
For the first time since we left home, it feels like maybe we ain’t the only folks carryin’ things too heavy to unpack. The neon stutters—VAC…ANT. I close my eyes, thankful for a place to rest while we figure out how to keep goin’. If only I could fly.
Tracie Adams, retired educator and playwright, writes from her farm in rural Virginia. She is the author of two memoirs, Our Lives in Pieces (2025 IAN Book of the Year Finalist) and Not Finished Yet (2025 BookLife/Publishers Weekly Prize Finalist). Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, longlisted for Wigleaf Top 50 and published widely in over 100 literary magazines including Hippocampus, Cleaver, Pithead Chapel, Stanchion, and Fictive Dream. Visit tracieadamswrites.com and follow her on X @1funnyfarmAdams and Substack @tracieadams.
by Tracie Adams
Author’s Note: This story is part of a collection I’m currently writing called Stories from the Lighthouse Motel. The narrator is a teenager on the run with her mother from their home on the Louisiana bayou. They’ve arrived at a roadside motel in a small Virginia town, which the teenager perceives as city life compared to her life on the bayou. These women carry a hard-earned independence. With the men in their lives gone, they’ve had to survive by relying on one another and making their own way. Music becomes an expression of who they are and how they endure, revealing their histories, their defenses, and the complicated bond between them. Through the narrator’s voice, the roadside motel, and the women who arrive there, I hoped to echo the grit, vulnerability, and outsider spirit associated with Eagle Pennell’s art and life.
Mama pulls into the gravel lot and kills the engine.
"We here?" I yawn from the back seat.
"For now."
Them two words followed us through Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee. Places I slept through with a pillow over my head ‘cuz Mama never gets sick of Lucinda Williams on autorepeat at full volume. If I never hear “Changed the Locks” again it’ll be too soon, but I know better than to say that to Mama. We’d stop and eat, sleep a night, maybe two if it felt safe.
The old Buick LeSabre ticks and cools around us. Everything we own is packed inside it—three black trash bags full of clothes, a blanket that smells like home, and a cardboard box Mama won't let me touch. She sits real still, both hands grippin’ the wheel. The hush that haunts her haunts me too. All the way here to Virginia.
The motel squats beside the highway like an old lady too tired to git up. Them bricks is the color of stale cornbread left out on the counter too long. The doors might've been blue when the dinosaurs roamed, but now they’s washed-out gray like driftwood. Still, I kinda dig the lighthouse sign from the disco days, the way the neon flutters like one tired eyelid that won’t stay open.
A shiny red car rolls in beside us. Out steps this city slicker who looks like she done survived some stuff. She’s ready for battle. You know the type—all honey bright hair, miniskirt, janglin’ jewelry.
"Well," Mama don’t even bother to whisper. "Ain't she somethin'."
The woman smiles and waves wrist-elbow-wrist, I swear like she in a parade or somethin’. Me and Mama watch her unload matchin’ pink suitcases from the trunk and backseat, like watchin’ clowns pop outta a Volkswagen.
Just when we’re enjoyin’ the show, the office door opens and a man comes out wipin’ his hands on his jeans. This guy kills the vibe with his tired eyes and slumped shoulders like he’s carrying somethin’ heavy can’t nobody else see. He smiles at Miss Virginia. She smiles back. Mama rolls her eyes. So do I. Drama don’t care where you come from.
We follow them inside. A little bell dings over the door, soundin’ surprised to see us. The office smells like old coffee, mildew, and one of them plug-in air fresheners.
"You got a room for these tired old bones?" Miniskirt bats her fake eyelashes so hard I feel a breeze.
Sad Man perks up, laughs. Mama don’t. He hands over a key, says real loud and proud that it’s the one and only suite. “For the sweet,” he adds. I swear to Gawd the man takes a bow.
Mama's face changes. Sometimes it happens quick, like lightnin’, sometimes slow like a storm rollin’ across the bayou. This is somewhere in between.
"I called earlier," Mama says. "That suite was supposed to be ours." She looks at me then at Miniskirt’s pile of pink then crosses her arms. She don’t say another word, just nods at Sad Man like it’s clear as creek water before rain that teenagers need more space than a pile of dang Mary Kay.
The room shrinks. The man looks like he hopes the floor will swallow him whole. Mama’s eyes are empty. I remember one time after Daddy’d been gone for months, I asked if she was lonely. She said nah, more like sad. She said sad was when you miss yourself and she’d been sad long before she ever met Daddy.
"We've been sleeping in the car," Mama mumbles.
I stare at my shoes. I hate when people know that.
The woman’s face softens. "Oh, honey."
She keeps sayin’ sorry, but I notice she ain’t givin’ the key back. I also notice her hands shakin’ and some pill bottles in her purse. We all sorry about somethin’ I reckon. Mama’s pretendin’ she don’t care but she’s grinding her teeth down to nubs. The man shuffles keys around, tries to fix it. I’m tryin’ to figure if we’re safe here. I watch eyes, hands, the way they say our names, the questions they ask. The way they look at Mama and me.
We end up in Room 14. It ain’t nothin’ fancy but it’s real beds and a hot shower. Mama falls asleep with her shoes on. I curl up beside her and listen to trucks moan down the highway. The walls are thin as Saltines. I hear Miniskirt next door moving around, the pipes rattlin’ and somebody downstairs pacing.
Mama's breathin’ changes sometime after midnight. I reach for her hand. "We okay, Mama?"
She squeezes my fingers. "We gonna be just fine, baby girl."
Next door, Miniskirt’s been flushin’ that toilet every hour. I think about them pills. Poor boomer must be sick. Downstairs, Sad Man has smoked a pack of Marlboros in the parking lot and just about wore a hole in the sidewalk. Mama’s cryin’ in her pillow.
I shove the earbuds in and Blaze Foley’s “If I Could Only Fly” almost helps me forget my trash bag-cardboard-box-life while neon dances on the ceiling. Reminds me of the lava lamp I left in Louisiana, along with all traces of Daddy and home and whatever it is me and Mama are runnin’ from. The song ends. The quiet hurts. I think about that poor sick woman who said she was sorry. Sad Man who wished he could help us but can’t even help hisself.
For the first time since we left home, it feels like maybe we ain’t the only folks carryin’ things too heavy to unpack. The neon stutters—VAC…ANT. I close my eyes, thankful for a place to rest while we figure out how to keep goin’. If only I could fly.
Tracie Adams, retired educator and playwright, writes from her farm in rural Virginia. She is the author of two memoirs, Our Lives in Pieces (2025 IAN Book of the Year Finalist) and Not Finished Yet (2025 BookLife/Publishers Weekly Prize Finalist). Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, longlisted for Wigleaf Top 50 and published widely in over 100 literary magazines including Hippocampus, Cleaver, Pithead Chapel, Stanchion, and Fictive Dream. Visit tracieadamswrites.com and follow her on X @1funnyfarmAdams and Substack @tracieadams.
