Page 60 of The Last Stars in the Sky
“Well, we look at our weaknesses and we address them,” I say, which sounds like something off a corporate website. Ridiculous. Meaningless.
“Why, though?” Kerry presses, shaking her head. “I mean, why even try? What does the future hold, Alex, except more of the same? We carve out some pathetic pioneer life here, barely managing to survive, and for what? To just keep doing it until we die from cancer or pneumonia or who knows, a bug bite?”
“No one can know what the future holds—”
“Tell me about it.” She reaches for another cigarette and lights it. “You know these are menthol, right? Disgusting.”
“They were my parents’.”
“So, they’re about ten years old too? Well, better than nothing.” She blows out a plume of smoke toward the sky. “I just don’t see the point,” she states wearily, “of anything.”
“Things can change,” I insist quietly. “It’s only been a couple of weeks. There could be a future for us, Kerry, that’s more than this place.” I have to believe that, for my children’s sake, if not my own.
She shrugs, as if it doesn’t really matter either way, her gaze once more on the lake. “You know I was trying to get pregnant a few years ago?” she remarks after a few moments when the only sound has been the shifting of the ice, sudden cracking sounds like a gunshot as it expands and contracts. It startled me at first, those sudden booms, but then I remembered it from mychildhood, how the lake is like a living thing, the ice too, moving and breathing.
“You were?” I ask.
“Yeah, with Kevin. The trapper. I don’t think he was all that bothered either way, to be honest, but I really wanted a baby. It didn’t happen, though. Obviously. Turned out I have ageing eggs, and there was a waiting list for the laser treatment to fix it—a couple of months, not too bad, but by that time Kevin wasn’t around anymore.” She lets out a weary sigh. “It’s for the best now, I guess. But it’s just one more thing I’ll never do. Never have, not in this world.”
“Kerry, you don’t know that—”
“I kind of do.” She turns to me, the ghost of one of her old smiles curving her mouth. “Come on, Alex. This is me you’re talking to. Let’s be real. Aren’t you worried the same for Mattie? For Ruby? What kind of lives are they going to be able to have? They’re soyoung. They’ve already been denied so much. What’s their future going to look like?”
A visceral tremble goes through me, a shudder of fear, of grief, because that’s something I have not let myself think about too much, if at all, and I won’t let myself think about it now. “That’s why we need to fight,” I insist. “We need to prepare, for all eventualities. For them, for their future. And for yours.”
“And what about yours?” She purses her lips thoughtfully. “Do you think Daniel is still alive?”
I jerk as if I’ve been electrocuted, or shot,again; she’s really not pulling her punches today. “I don’t know,” I admit, the words drawn from me with painful honesty, deep reluctance. “I hope so.”
“It’s been three weeks.”
“I know that.” It’s mid-December now, well below freezing every single day, and even colder at night. Is Daniel out theresomewhere, a corpse in the snow? And what about Sam? Will I ever know?
“The likelihood,” Kerry states matter-of-factly, but with a certain gentleness, “is that he’s not coming back.”
I press my lips together, hard enough to hurt, to keep from making the sound that threatens to escape me, small and wounded. “You can’t know that for sure,” I manage after a moment. “And right now, for the sake of my children, as well as my own, I’m choosing to hope that he is. That hewill.”
Kerry nods slowly, accepting if still clearly skeptical. I breathe out, forcing the images, the fears, from my mind. If I think too much about Daniel, about Sam, I will lose my focus, and I can’t afford to do that now, or ever.
Kerry looks back out at the lake. “What about Kyle?” she asks after a moment.
I know what she means. “I think he should stay.”
She turns back, one eyebrow arched. “Another mouth to feed?”
“A man around could be helpful. And where else is he going to go? Plus, we need the car.” I’ve been surprised by my own sudden feelings of something approaching tenderness toward Kyle. Last night Kerry insisted he bathe before bed, and he undressed down to his boxers, shivering as he stood in the bathtub and Kerry dumped a bucket of not even tepid water over his head. Soaking wet he probably weighed less than I did; he was short and skinny, his ribs poking out, his shoulder blades like chicken wings.
And, oddly, because he was really nothing like him, he somehow reminded me of Mattie’s boyfriend Drew. I’d been so harsh toward that boy, so dismissive and so scornful, certain he was bad news for my daughter, and maybe hewas; but I never gave him a chance. I never even thought about giving him one.I’m not sure I can make myself regret that now, but it feels like I have a second chance, with Kyle. To be kinder, more accepting.
“Okay,” Kerry says, accepting. “We keep Kyle.”
“I think we need to call a meeting,” I state, warming to the idea as I consider it. It feels proactive, purposeful. “Let everyone weigh in on how we can protect this place. How we can go forward in a way that works—for food, for protection, and even for fun. This doesn’t just have to be about survival. We can make a life here. A real life.” I’ve said as much before, but we keep getting derailed by events, by the outside. No more trips to Corville, I think. No more drawing attention to ourselves, and we can, maybe, make this work. At least, we can try.
“Forfun?” Kerry shakes her head, but she’s smiling, at least a little. “So, what are you thinking? An alarm system for the gate? We’ll string tin cans along the road, so we know when someone’s coming? A voluntary militia, out on patrol, with frying pans for shields, saucepans for helmets?” I know she’s mocking me, but frankly it doesn’t all sound like that bad an idea. “You sound like the Apple Dumpling Gang,” she says with a short laugh. “Or maybe, I don’t know, the Goonies.”
I shrug, smiling back. “Whatever works.” But I’m thinking about building a greenhouse, cutting more wood, trapping a beaver. Making maple syrup in March, planting the seeds my parents kept in the spring. Figuring out a way to live here long term, and worry about the marauders when they actually show up, if they ever do. Surely, we’ve got enough to be getting on with.
Kerry heaves a long-suffering sigh as she flicks her second cigarette into the snow, where it lands with a little hiss. “Okay, fine, we’ll call this town meeting or whatever, but just remember, when we’re being raped and killed by those rednecks, it was me who told you so.”
