I pushed it open.
It was a room again. A real motel room. Small and clean and bright. A double bed with a quilt on it. Blue and white. Hand-stitched. A little table by the window with two chairs. A dresser.
The old blue-flowered wallpaper had been uncovered. Somebody had carefully stripped off the white paint. The flowers were faded. Some of them were water-stained from the storm. But they were there.
On the wall above the bed, there was a framed photograph.
Black and white. Grainy. A newspaper photo from June 1994. The Salina Journal. A motel with half the roof torn off. Debris everywhere. Firemen with flashlights.
And in the middle of it, a small woman in a soaked nightgown. Standing in the rubble. Holding a tiny baby wrapped in a motel towel against her chest.
Smiling.
Under the photo, a little brass plaque.
ROOM 18
On June 9, 1994, in this room, during an F3 tornado,
Jean Voss, R.N., delivered Gabriela Jean Ortega
in the bathtub, with no roof, in the rain.
She sang the whole time.
