Page 116 of A Better World

“So, we have here, two arguments. One is mundane, if ugly. The other is malignant. I’ve been playing devil’s advocate with you for a long time, despite my private misgivings. I don’t know why. It just seemed like the right approach. We couldn’t both be standing out, asking questions, making scenes. But it occurred to me that these two arguments may coexist.

“What’s interesting is how it started. This town was just a corporate headquarters in the 1980s. They didn’t build the shelter until twenty years after that. Did Parson Senior begin these festivals as part of a corporate retreat? Did they evolve over time, along with the corporation, into something violent? There isn’t any real government here. No laws. For a very long time, they’ve been able to do whatever they’ve wanted.”

Russell liked big concepts and big words, especially when he was nervous. He liked talking big when he was avoiding feeling something, too. “What are you saying?” she asked.

“Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s real. Having never been to a Winter Festival, we can’t possibly know. Viewed under the lens of a particular kaleidoscope, the Parker children may have been in the path of harm. I would not have done what you did. You risked our family for the sake of another family and to me, that’s wrong. Your loyalty ought to be to us. But the act, itself, was rational. Brave, even. But that’s not surprising.”

“Yeah?” she asked, though she sensed by now where he was going.

“As you know, I draw conclusions with greater deliberation than you. This has been a benefit on occasion. My doggedness is what kept me employed for as long as I was on the outside. It’s also what got the attention of BetterWorld. I don’t think you’d ever have managed that kind of slow drudgery I performed at the EPA. That’s the work that fueled our livelihood.”

“True,” she said. She might have added that she could have gone back into medicine full time, and he could have helped more. Combined, they’d have made a little less money, but their lifestyle back home would have been about the same. But that regret was a buried conch washed away into the ocean. It was gone.

“Admitting fault is hard for me. People can be unkind. Sometimes, and I don’t want to start a fight, Linda, but you’ve been unkind.”

She felt a tightness in her throat. “I know. I remember some of the things I said to you and I feel sick about it. We had a bad dynamic.”

“Yes,” he said. “It might still be bad. I don’t know. I keep telling you I love you and I understand that it’s not enough. But I don’t know the answer to these problems we have.”

“What are you really saying, Russell?”

He let out a long breath. “I think about all the times you disagreed with me, not just in Plymouth Valley. I think about how I ignored you. For years, if I didn’t like what you were saying, I ignored you.”

This admission cut deep. It felt like a cold scalpel through the center of her, opening her wide. She should have felt relieved. She wasn’t crazy or oversensitive. He really had been blowing her off. But the emotion inside her wasn’t relief: it was shame.

“It’s because I thought I was right,” he said.

“I know.”

“But a lot of times, I wasn’t right. I can be very blind. You’re a headstrong person. Sometimes I was surprised you stayed with me. Why did you?”

She thought about crazy Gal, who’d set her own house on fire to get out of something unthinkable. To either save or end her family. She thought about the many ways she might have made big, terrifying decisions without him, which could have gotten them all out of this a long time ago. “Maybe I’m not that strong a person. It’s just a story we told about who we were as the Farmer-Bowens.”

“It’s a different kind of strong,” he said. “I think you really just love us that much. You haven’t wanted to risk losing us. I haven’t always been happy, either. This has been hard. But I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing for the same reasons.”

It occurred to her that this was a postmortem. They were talking about something dead and gone. Since moving here and rescuing those kids, she’d changed. She’d proven to herself that she was the kind of person who could make big, terrifying decisions. She’d become a woman who could leave.

“Why are you telling me this now?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve just been thinking,” he said. But she knew. The Winter Festival was tomorrow. These things needed to be said, in the event they never again had the chance.

Unable to sleep after that, they made love. She had the most terrible intuition that it was for the last time.

DAY 1

In the morning, Russell drove. Linda sat shotgun and Josie took the back. The bags remained in the trunk. According to his device’s GPS, Hip was at the Bennett house. They went there, but no one was home. He must have already headed to the festival and left his device behind.

“What now?” she asked.

“We get you and Josie out, and I find Hip,” he answered.

As they drove to the wall, they passed crowds of people headed in the opposite direction, for the festival. Most walked toward any of the six entrances all over town. Like this really was the Ark, members of the Beautification Society gathered caladrius into livestock trucks.

When they arrived, they met new faces at security. Armed, these guards turned the Farmer-Bowens away.

At a loss, the three of them drove the periphery of the town, looking for chinks in the wall. They found none. Slowly, the populace dwindled. The town emptied. When they got to 9 Sunset Heights, Pratt and Sally were waiting.

Everything inside Linda jangled like dissonant piano chords. A scream would let some of the tension out, but she kept it inside her, instead looked back at Josie, who’d gone pale.

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