Page 45 of Starlight & Dark Nights

“Hang on,” he says from the other side of the door. He rattles the knob for good measure and then gives up. “Give me one second.”

Almost instantly, she can hear Vance pounding at the bedroom window that is Ryan’s. “Son,” he’s shouting. “I need you to wake up. It’s Vance Majors from next door. Your mom needs you. Wake up, Ryan.”

It takes a moment, but the young boy comes stumbling from his room groggily. “Mom?” Ryan says, looking with alarm at his mother on the floor, crouched on all fours. As lightning flashes again, Maxine rounds her back and howls; the scene must be terrifying for a thirteen-year-old boy.

Vance pounds on the front door again. “Let me in, Ryan. I need to help her.”

Ryan does as he’s told and then stands aside, staring wide-eyed as Vance comes to Maxine and kneels beside her. Vance, who had been a medic in the Army, has seen more life and death than Maxine can imagine, and he speaks to her calmly, asking questions about her contractions and rubbing her back as she sobs in pain.

“Son?” Vance says, turning to Ryan. “I need you to press 0 for the operator and tell her we need an ambulance. Can you do that? You’ll have to give her your address. Can you help me out here?” He holds eye contact with Ryan as Maxine looks on, blowing puffs of breath out of her mouth as sweat runs down her temples.

Ryan nods, but he is pale. Certainly there has been enough trauma in his young life of late, but Maxine needs him right now. She really needs him.

“Okay,” Vance says calmly to Maxine. “We’ll have help here shortly to get you to the hospital, but in the meantime, I’m going to walk you through this, alright?”

Maxine nods frantically. She’ll do anything Vance tells her to at this point.

Within minutes, he has her on her back, and she’s squeezing his hand tightly as he explains every pain to her. Of course, Maxine has had two children and she knows all these things, but it does help to distract her to focus on Vance’s calm, even voice.

“Jude will be over in a minute,” Vance says, sitting on the floor next to Maxine as her chest heaves with each strong contraction. “She’ll stay with Ryan and the little one while we go to the hospital, okay?”

“You’re coming?” Maxine asks him. Her vision blurs with the pain. “You’re coming with me?”

Vance looks away for a long moment, but he does not let go of her hand. “I am,” he says firmly. “It’s what Derek would want, and I know it’s what I would want if…well, if the roles were reversed. I’d like to do this for him, as a friend and as a man.”

Maxine nods as her hot, salty tears mix with the sweat that’s pouring from her skin. “I’d like that,” she says between gritted teeth. “And Derek would, too.”

* * *

By April, little Benjamin Derek Trager is already smiling and moving his arms and legs around whenever his brother or sister stops to coo at him. He’s a happy baby, and Maxine is grateful that, unlike Ryan and Wendy, he sleeps for long stretches and eats like a horse. None of this “feed a little, take a break, cry for more milk as soon as Mama gets settled doing something else”; this guy latches on and gets his fill. His zest for everything is admirable, but sometimes Maxine looks at his sweet face and wonders whether some of his enthusiasm will be dimmed when he realizes that it’s just her—that he has no father.

But worries like these only plague her at night. During the day, she’s far too busy with a toddler and an infant to entertain existential concerns.

The group of protestors that had initially caught Maxine’s eye has grown; no longer is it just a mildly curious bunch of people who aren’t sure they believe in the government funding the space program. Of late, the group has grown to include some rougher characters, and Maxine has been attending the meetings with baby Benjamin in tow. She sits at the back of the group, a blanket securely wrapped around her as she nurses the baby out of view, and listens to the men and women speaking passionately about the way the government is trying to hijack this country. And she’s not sure they’re wrong. In fact, they make a lot of sense.

One of the men, a college professor named Hamlin Morse, worked hard to convince the group that there is a subversive movement by those in power to make America into a nation of lemmings. Professor Morse tells them that, by giving too much authority to the government, the country is on a course that will lead to a nation of people who are addicted to prescription drugs, who are dumbed down by subpar educational systems, and who feel dissatisfied enough with the economy and the status quo to vote against their own interests. Maxine has listened with fascination as he tells them that the notion that America is the land of the free and a place where dreams and opportunity are readily available is a sham.

After their meeting two nights ago, Professor Morse had called Maxine at home and initiated a conversation with her that left Maxine wanting more. Far more.

“I noticed you looked dubious,” Morse had said on the telephone. “I apologize for interrupting your family time, but I wanted to make sure you understood my point. It’s important to me that people hear what I’m saying.”

“I heard you,” Maxine said, holding Benjamin in her arms as she cradled the phone receiver between her ear and shoulder. “I just thought it sounded far-fetched that the government wants to turn us into zombies.”

“No, no, my dear,” Hamlin Morse said. “Not zombies, per se. They need us to be alert enough to do the menial jobs in this country. We might get addicted to their lab-created drugs, but they need us to be desperate enough to work. And they need our tax money to fuel their pet projects, like NASA.”

“Mmm,” Maxine said, rocking Benjamin from side to side. “So you really don’t believe that America is a land of opportunity? That we care for one another, and that our government cares for us?”

Hamlin Morse gave a sharp, “Ha!” at this. “Cares for us? No, Maxine, I don’t. We are worker bees. We are cogs in a wheel that keeps turning because we are willing to be manipulated into turning it. Do you want to be a part of that? Is that what you want yourchildrento be a part of?”

Maxine blinked on the other end of the phone line, considering this. No, she did not want her children to fall prey to the kind of future that Hamlin Morse was describing—of course she didn’t. She wanted their lives to be meaningful, and worth something. She wanted them to be valued and cared about. Morse’s words weighed heavily on her heart.

“No, I don’t want that for them.” Benjamin fussed in her arms and she went to place him in the playpen she kept in the middle of the living room. “I want them to be happy.”

Morse made a phlegmy coughing sound on his end, and Maxine could hear him light up a cigarette. “Well, Mrs. Trager,” he said thoughtfully. “If you don’t want them to end up giving their lives to the political machinery the way your husband did, then you need to act now. You need to join the movement and create some real purpose in your life.”

Maxine thought about this. Her purpose was being a mother. And, prior to the accident, her purpose had been to be Derek’s wife. But his death had changed that—at least on the surface. Maybe her purpose now was to be his wife in the sense that she could let other people know what was really happening, and in some way, perhaps save the lives of other people. Other’s people’s husbands, fathers, loved ones. If people knew that there were dark forces at work behind the scenes, then maybe they could avoid the kind of fate that Professor Hamlin was describing to the group at their meetings. Maxine thought that being a part of this could beherway to do something positive—to turn Derek’s death into something with meaning.

“What would I do?” she asked Morse.

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