Middle Pages

Over the Christmas holidays, I spent time travelling like many do, to see family and loved ones.  Last night in the middle of a deep freeze, I embarked on the four hour trek from my mother’s home back to my own.  Partway through the journey, I experienced some car trouble and pulled off the highway into a gas station. With all the auto repair shops having closed for the night, I decided my only option was to check into a hotel.  I am not sure when the man began following me.  Was it in the gas station where I lifted the hood of my car? The Canadian Tire parking lot? The hotel lobby? I will never know…but what I’d already thought was turning out to be a disastrous evening was going to get worse. Because I was travelling with my dog Georgie, the hotel clerk assigned me to a “pet-friendly” room in a building that was separate from the main hotel.  It was a short drive behind the main building to a smaller building that had its own parking lot- dark and empty.  I was too frazzled from