Page 47 of Hero

We reach the town just before sunset, and it’s a relief because the temperature is dropping quickly. It was a very small town. A few blocks of houses and one main street with a post office, a laundromat, and a Dollar General. While the buildings are in disrepair, all of them are still standing. The store has been cleaned out, just like the food and supplies from the houses. But the houses still have furniture, and we find one two-story house with upstairs rooms that still have made beds. The windows and doors are intact, so they’ve been kept safe from the elements and will be perfectly comfortable for us to spend the night in.

We can close and bar the door, and then maybe we can all get some sleep.

Rina is excited about our discovery, her mood only dampened because her father isn’t talking to her much. I try to give him significant looks like I did last night, indicating that his mood is upsetting Rina. But tonight he’s even more jittery, and he’ll barely meet my eyes.

I try not to get angry with him. He’s grounded me for all these years when my anxiety got out of control. He’s allowed to have a couple of bad days in a very difficult situation.

So I focus on Rina, creating a game over setting up a table and chairs, making it pretty with things we find in the house, and preparing our dinner. She and I have a good time, and Zed deigns to sit down to eat with us.

But when Rina asks for music, he tells her not tonight. He gets up and stalks out of the house.

Vibrating with annoyance, I peer out the window to see what he’s doing. He hasn’t gone far. He’s standing by the front door with his gun, scanning the darkening surroundings.

The idiot is planning to stand guard all night again, after getting no sleep last night.

I want to shake him. I really do.

“Is Daddy okay?” Rina asks. She followed me to the window and is looking out like me.

“Yes, he’s fine. He just wants to focus on keeping watch.”

“Are there bad people out there?” She reaches up to take one of my hands in hers.

I squeeze it. “There’s always a chance that we might accidentally run into bad people, but we haven’t seen any yet on our trip. It seems pretty quiet out there. Your daddy just wants to be careful. He wants to make sure you’re always safe.”

“You need to be safe too.” She gazes up at me almost beseechingly.

“Yes, we all need to be safe. He’s trying to keep us all safe.”

“Is that why he’s upset?”

“I don’t think he’s really upset.”

“He’s upset. He wasn’t upset like this at home.”

“I know. But things are different as we travel. It’s a little harder for all of us. It won’t stay like this.”

“Maybe we should have stayed home.”

“No. We made the right decision to go find a place with more food and more people. Your daddy knows it too.”

“Okay.” She breathes deeply through her nose. In and out. In and out. “Can I go back upstairs and make my bed pretty?”

“Yes, that’s a great idea. Go and find all the prettiest blankets and throw pillows you can to make your bed pretty. Your daddy and I will be up soon to tuck you in.”

“Okay.” Her mood has shifted quickly, as it often does. And she’s smiling as she runs back up the stairs to the room we picked out to sleep in tonight.

I watch until she’s upstairs, and then I go outside. Stride over to where Zed is poised tensely.

“You’re upsetting Rina.”

He blinks, like it takes him a minute to come back to wherever his mind was focused. “What?”

“You’re upsetting Rina. Being this tense and standoffish and uptight. She sees it, and it’s worrying her. Can you try to relax a little?”

He makes a face, and I can clearly see his first instinct is to be annoyed with me, but he tries to swallow it down. “This isn’t the time to relax.”

“I know we need to be careful, but we don’t need to scare poor Rina to death. And you don’t need to tie yourself into knots.”

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