Page 71 of A Better World

“I don’t know why you worry about Gal Parker when your own daughter needs you,” Daniella said. She wasn’t panting. For her, this race was a ride on a slide.

“What?” Linda asked. Her voice broke with a high-pitched squeak.

“She vandalized PV property.”

“No, she didn’t!” Linda said, which was a stupid and untrue thing to say.

“Liar,” Daniella said.

Linda’d always assumed the expressionknife in the backwas figurative. But right then, she felt a sharp and penetrating pain, as if she’d been stabbed from behind—from a place without eyes to anticipate.

“Linda’s daughter’s a thug,” Rachel said, jokey and mean.

Daniella laughed. “But what’s a thug, anyway?”

Linda stopped. She had no gas left in her tank. The other two slowed, but not much. Their red, adrenaline-fueled faces craned back as they ran.

“Don’t come in last,” Rachel called.

Then they were far ahead. In the distance, Linda heard Daniella crack a lighthearted joke, like everything was just fine, and no one was cruel.

Her eyes brimming, Linda tried to make her way to the side of the street. A man collided with her, knocking her down, then scrambling back up without a care for her, and running away at top speed. She was on her knees like a stone in a river. Racers passed all around. Trapped, she protected her head with her arms. Nobody stopped or offered help or even asked:Are you okay?

They were a monolith. A dead titan. She felt, suddenly, that she was underneath it. Couldn’t possibly find a way out.

But she had to stand. She’d get hurt if she didn’t. She’d come in last. And it was very, very important not to come in last, or you might get a black ribbon. You might get left in the tunnels at the Winter Festival.Beware the Sacrifice.

All these feet, coming at her. “Get out of my way!” an indignant voice screamed. She stayed on her knees and crawled, her hands getting stepped on, her stomach kicked with a hard foam sole. The pain shocked her with its bright intensity, radiating through her abdomen like a star. She kept going. And then, she was standing on the side, the race going by all fast and blurry—the polite and polished and pleasant in their beautiful exercise suits and their beautiful bodies. Palms bleeding, she wept.

Around the corner came Lloyd Bennett. Her heart lifted like helium. Friends. There was Russell! Even a block away, his group was loud talking, trying to appear impenetrable beneath their exhausted pants. They were coming.

“Russell!” she cried.

He jerked, recognizing her voice. She saw it. But her call had been soft, and this race was loud. He didn’t look for her. He kept going. A bastardization of an old proverb occurred to her:If you fall during a race and your husband doesn’t see you, did it happen at all?

Warm blood trickled down her knees. Signs showed the winding race path to the park three kilometers away. “Get out of the way!” someone shouted, though she wasn’t in the way; she was on the side, not running.

Fuck it. She walked back in the direction she’d come.Fuck this race.

Even with the one-kilometer lead, most of the people she knew had beaten her to the finish line, including Hip and Cathy. Feeling meek, she stayed at a distance as the rest gathered to watch the last runners. A group pushed through the finish together, all in their eighties and seeming greatly relieved. Then a few more—Dr. Chernin rushed past, pushing Louis in a racing chair. Sweaty, eyes haunted, he didn’t stop for another ten yards after the finish line.

“The last two!” Anouk shouted.

About twenty yards from the finish came an old man who had to be in his eighties, neck and neck with a heavyset young man no more than sixteen, who was limping, having fallen and sprained his ankle. It was goiter-sized and had bled through his white sock. People all around Linda were mesmerized.Oh no, someone beside her whispered.Who let him get that fat?

Someone else answered:It’s not right! It’s not fair! He’s too young!

The old man approached the finish line. The boy was behind him, dead last with no chance of catching up. You could have heard a pin drop.

I can’t watch. I can’t bear it, someone whispered with such heartfelt pain that Linda felt pain, too.

At the last second, the old man stopped. The teen limped ahead,gasping in pain, his mouth gaping in surprise as he passed the man and finished the race. The audience cried out, laughing and cheering. The old man mugged for all of PV as he crossed the finish line. A kind ofWho, me? What an honor!

“And the last of us shall be the first!” Anouk announced.

The old man climbed up the steps. She presented him with a medal on a black ribbon. “The honors!” she announced as she stepped out of the way, and Linda saw that on the podium was a butcher’s block.

The old man showboated. He commanded the audience’s attention, had them laughing as he pointed at each of the caladrius onstage and counted eeny-meeny-miney-moe, at last landing on the closest one. This he gruffly lifted, placed on the block under a neck strap, and slammed down an axe.

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