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are gone. Probably more cars to rescue from the storm. It’s the car next to the Bronco that catches my attention. I can still see the girl inside, still fussing around under the dome light.
    I twist the key, open the door, find the lights on the wall and flip them on before closing the door behind me.
    It’s fucking freezing in here. Like they have no heat at all. I hit up the unit under the window that acts as a heater and air conditioner and turn it to full-blast hot.
    Now what?
    There’s two queen-sized beds, a table and chairs, a long low dresser with a mirror, and a TV mounted on the wall. I grab the remote and switch it on. The time flashes on the screen for a moment. One-thirty AM. Shit, time has flown by. Last I looked it was eleven-thirty.
    Well, happy New Year, Ford. Yet another one spent alone.
    I watch a repeat of the ball dropping in Times Square, and then realize the room is not much warmer. I fuck with the controls on the under-window unit for a few minutes, trying to see if the dials are just lined up wrong and another setting will deliver the heat I’m badly craving. But it’s no use. I take out my phone and check the thermometer app. Twelve degrees outside. I calculate the probable temperature in this room and come up with fifty-three.
    Fifty-fucking-three degrees. For two hundred and fifty dollars a night.
    I can go complain to Mrs. Pearson. Or I can suck it up, go sift through my winter survival bag from the back of the Bronco, and grab the self-heating blizzard blankets.
    I opt for the blizzard blankets because Mrs. Pearson is just… no .
    The snow is still coming down hard, maybe even harder than before. I can barely make out the garage parking lot and it’s only about a hundred yards away. I jog over and open the back of the Bronco, yanking the tub of gear towards me. The blankets are down at the bottom, so I just dump all the shit out on the bed of the truck and take out the flat packages. I slam the door and a baby’s cry almost gives me a heart attack.
    I look carefully at the girl’s car and realize it’s steamed up from breath. They’re still inside.
    I knock on the back seat window and see some blurry movement inside, but no one answers. “Hey,” I call. “Do you have a ride coming?”
    The baby answers with a small complaint, then some gurgled noises. And nothing.
    Even though I’m freezing my ass off now, I try again. A softer knock this time. “Hello? It’s too cold to be in a parked car with no heat.”
    Nothing.
    I get the hint and walk away. Hey, if she wants to stay in the car, it’s none of my business. I get all the way back to my room door before I realize I could at least give her a blanket. I look at the door. Then the car. Then the door.
    And walk back over to the car. I’m fully wet now, so I stop by the Bronco again and pull out my gym bag that at least has a pair of running shorts and a dry shirt.
    I knock on the window again. “Hello—”
    “Go away!” the girl yells. Then the baby starts crying for real and she starts swearing inside. Like she’s reached the end of her coping capability and is about to lose it.
    I’m familiar with this feeling. I used to get it often.
    I scrub my hand down my face and decide to switch tactics. “If you do not answer me, I will call the police and report you for child abuse.”
    There’s a brief pause, then the window cranks down a single inch and the girl inside peers up at me from dark eyes. She is young. No older than twenty if I guess right. The snow swirls in the small opening, chilling the baby out of its temporary acquiescence. It straight-out bawls.
    “Report me? Are you serious? I have no money for a room, OK? I didn’t plan on getting stuck here in this blizzard, there’s nothing I can do about it. So go ahead, call whoever you want!” She rolls the window back up and I knock again. It rolls back down, a half an inch this time. “What?” she snaps.
    I look down at the blanket, then up at the snow