Page 76 of The Last Stars in the Sky
“Alex…?” she whispers, her voice little more than a croak, her gaze unfocused and confused.
After they’d been left by the side of the road, they’d found another car, looted an empty house. Daniel had become startlingly indifferent not just to the concept of stealing but the practicalities of it—the breaking of glass, the rifling of possessions. In one house they had broken into, an old woman, alone and unprotected, had cowered in an armchair, her arms flung over her face. Daniel had simply stepped over her to get to the kitchen and see what food she had for him to take.
When had he become that man? Had it been when he’d shot that boy? That had certainly been a turning point, but only one of many.
When they’d finally got to Jenny’s nursing home, the place had been abandoned; they had walked through the entry hall, corpses in wheelchairs, thesmell…
And yet Alex’s mother had been alive. Just. She and another woman, Penelope, had been the only surviving residents of the memory care ward; the locked unit had probably been their salvation, hiding them behind high walls, safe from predators. Between them they’d had enough know-how—again, just—to provide for themselves, eking out an existence from what food remained in the nursing home kitchen. Fortunately, there had been enough bottled water for them to survive, although they’d been filthy and dehydrated. When Daniel had stood in front of his mother-in-law, swaying with exhaustion, overwhelmed with emotion and yet at the same time feeling utterly numb, she’d blinked up at him and then given him one of her knowing grins.
“Let me just get my things,” she’d stated grandly, as if he were picking her up from a party. Maybe, in the confused corridors of her mind, he was.
He would have laughed if he could have summoned the energy, the emotion, but by then he’d felt as if he’d had nothing inside him, and yet in some ways that had just been the beginning.
They’d taken the other woman, Penelope, with them, as a moral duty, even though his moral standards by then had become questionable indeed. In any case, she’d died before they reached the state border.
But Daniel isn’t going to tell Alex any of that now, as she takes her mother into her arms, presses a kiss to her wrinkled forehead.
“You’re home, Mom,” she whispers, kissing her again. “You’re home, you’rehome.”
An hour later, Jenny is settled in the guest bedroom, already asleep, and Mattie and Ruby are giving Sam a tour of the place, seeming self-important and excited, but also a little shy around their big brother. He and Alex are not the only ones, Daniel thinks, who will have to get to know each other all over again.
They have walked down to the dock, just the two of them, presumably to talk, although neither of them said as much. It is late afternoon, and the sun is gleaming on the water, burnishing its surface like a gold coin. Daniel has had introductions to the motley crew of residents, although he doesn’t know how they came to be there, or why. They both have so much to say, to explain, and yet, in the silence of that mellow, golden afternoon, it seems as if neither of them wants to begin the reckoning.
They sit on the new boards of fresh pine, legs stretched out to the glinting lake. In the distance, a loon skims the water and then takes off, dark wings outstretched, into flight. The serene beauty of it all, after everything he has seen, feels like too heavy a weight to bear. He lets out a choked huff of sound, shaking his head. It is all he can manage.
“I know,” Alex says quietly, and for a second, he wonders if she does. “I never expected you to find my mother,” she continues after a moment, her tone reflective. “Never, not in a million years.” He can’t think how to respond. “I shouldn’t have asked you to get Sam.” Her voice is low, firm.
“I would have gone, anyway.”
“Still.”
He stares out over the water, squinting in his eyes in the sunlight. He thinks of the man he was, driving down that road, determined not to fail his wife again. That man seems like anaive stranger to him now—pompous in his certainty, in his willingness to sacrifice, without any idea of the true cost. That man had no idea. No idea at all that he would sell his soul, give it away willingly, in tattered pieces, simply to survive. That he would see things, say things,dothings, he could never have imagined himself doing, over and over again. And that he wouldn’t even care. Stealing food from those who needed it. Ignoring others who begged for help. Killing in cold blood. All without pity, without guilt.
“It doesn’t matter now,” he says at last, and Alex nods.
“I know, but it still needed to be said.”
He glances at her appraisingly; like him, she has changed, but in a different way. She seems settled, stronger, more accepting. There is a calmness at her center, while there is only an emptiness at his. He drove a thousand miles to get back home, and now he wonders if he will ever find his way back to his wife again. If it is even possible.
“You’ve done a lot here,” he remarks, in the tone of someone commenting on a well watered yard.Nice place you have here.
“Not just me,” Alex replies, but he can see she’s bursting with pride. “Everyone has taken part. I couldn’t have done this on my own, Daniel, not even a little bit.” Her voice is heartfelt, sure. She has relationships with these people, he realizes. These strangers—Kerry, Kyle, the woman who leveled a gun at him and has a child. He can’t remember her name. They are important to Alex in a way he can’t begin to fathom, not after the last few months.
“How did they all come to be here?” he asks, although he’s not sure he has the capacity to listen, to care.
Alex lets out a soft laugh. “It’s a long story.”
“Yes.”
“It didn’t happen all at once, but…everyone needed help. And everyone has had something to offer.”
How sweet, Daniel thinks, with a sudden burst of savagery. How perfectly Hallmark. She’s been taking in strays while he has willfully ignored anyone who might keep him from his purpose. Entirely unexpectedly, he’s angry; he’s absolutely filled with rage. Alex was playing at happy families while he and Sam were battling their way through hell. He does his best to swallow it down.
Alex reaches over and touches his hand. “I’m not saying it was easy,” she tells him gently, and he wonders how much of his thought process she understood.
“No,” he agrees. The rage subsides as fast as it came, a wave receding, leaving him only achingly, unbearably tired. They are both silent, staring out at the water.
“When you’re ready,” Alex finally says, “can you tell me what it is like out there? If there is…any hope? With the government? Any sense of order?”
