Page 22 of The Last Stars in the Sky
“Sorry,” I reply, my voice guarded.
“I’m Kerry. Darlene’s daughter. You used to babysit me when I was a kid.”
I did? A vague memory of watching a little kid with armbands splash in the lake, while I sat on the dock and felt bored, drifts through my mind, but I could be making it up. The woman in front of me is entirely unfamiliar, and her expression, while not hostile, is certainly not friendly. I stare at her blankly for a second, and her lip curls, just a little, but I still see it.Stupid rich American, she’s probably thinking, and I don’t entirely blame her.
“Sorry,” I say again, and I wait, at the top of the road, until she stops, about ten feet away from me. An impasse, a face-off. Mattie is behind me, huddled and shivering in the cold.
“I need help,” Kerry says without preamble. “I think my mom has had a heart attack.”
“Darlene?” I say—stupidly, it’s true—and her lip curls again as she nods. “I’m sorry,” I tell her—a third apology, but this time it also serves as a no. How could I possibly help? “Have you gone to the hospital?” Another stupid remark.
“Do you think the hospitals are working?” she asks in an are-you-actually-dumb tone. “There’s no electricity or anything anywhere, and no one is supposed to be out on the roads, anyway. Besides, my mom’s car is broken down, and I’m out of gas.”
I don’t know what to say to any of this, so I remain silent.
“Your dad had a heart attack once,” Kerry tells me, as if I don’t know. That was eight years ago, a year before he died of a related cancer. “My mom thinks she saw some nitroglycerin in your parents’ medicine cabinet.”
Once again, I don’t reply; I already know there is nitroglycerin in the medicine cabinet because we inventoried it just a few hours ago. I held the little brown bottle in my hand as memories of my father’s heart attack—the call that came early one morning—filtered through me, the sudden clutch of terror I’d felt at this first brush with mortality and suffering, the sudden, terribly certain knowledge that lifedoesend.
Now I realize I’m not sure that I want to confirm to this woman, this stranger, about the nitroglycerin. I’m not sure I want to give it to Darlene.
Then, it hits me in a rush; Darlene gave Daniel gas, gas her own daughter could clearly have used, to get her to the hospital, or at least somewhere safe.For Sam, she’d said. And here I am, reluctant to give her some potentially life-saving nitroglycerin that we don’t even need? I’m ashamed of myself, and yet the urge to protect my family, to circle the wagons and preserve our supplies, is still strong.
“There might be some,” I allow, my tone guarded. “Did you walk all the way here?” She nods. I think it’s about four miles to Darlene’s little house, on the way to Flintville. “I’ll look,” I tell her, and then add, as a somewhat reluctant afterthought, “Why don’t you come inside?”
Kerry follows me into the cottage while Mattie trails behind, and no one says a word. As we come inside, Ruby appears from the loft, her hair in a tangle about her face, her eyes wide, her hands lost in the sleeves of her sweatshirt. She doesn’t speak either.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” Kerry says, as she looks around the kitchen, and I wonder if I’m imagining the edge to her voice. I think of what Daniel said, about people looking at the cottage and lake and wanting what we have. I walk quickly to the bathroom.
I find the little brown vial of nitroglycerin easily enough and slip it into my pocket. As I straighten, I catch sight of my reflection in the mirror—my face is pale, my dark hair pulled back too tightly, the lines around my eyes and between my nose and mouth look deeper than they were just a few days ago. I look strained, anxious,angry…and older than my forty-six years. I take a deep breath, let it out, and then turn to go back to the kitchen.
Mattie, Ruby, and Kerry are all standing in the same places, silent and waiting. I take the vial out of my pocket. “I have it here,” I say, and Kerry holds her hand out. The peremptoriness of the gesture annoys me, and so I keep hold of it, my fingers closing around it. Her mouth tightens, her eyes flicking to my hand and then back to my face.
“Are you going to walk back?” I ask after a second when no one speaks, and she just shrugs. “I’ll drive you.” I’m not sure why I’m offering, only that I am. Maybe I’m trying to make up for theway I’ve held on to the vial, or maybe I want to see more of the world.
“Dad has the car—” Mattie protests, and Ruby interjects softly, “There’s the truck.”
My dad’s truck, an ancient beast of a machine, twenty years old, hard-used and careworn. Daniel tinkered it with yesterday, to make sure it worked while he was gone, the engine sputtering to life after he’d stepped hard on the gas. For some reason this, at the most inopportune of moments, makes my eyes sting as I remember his thoughtfulness. As he opened the hood of the truck, I had stood there restless, anxious, even annoyed. Why?
Kerry shrugs her assent. “All right,” she says, and then, as an afterthought, “Thanks.”
It takes me a second, but I realize her prickliness and her reluctance—they remind me of me.
“We should all go,” I say, because I don’t want to leave Mattie and Ruby alone; but then I remember what Daniel said, about not leaving the cottage unoccupied. But it’s only four miles, I reason, and we won’t be gone that long, maybe half an hour at most. I’ll lock all the doors; it will have to be enough.
The girls pull on coats and boots, and we walk down to the barn, where the truck is kept. It’s already starting to get dusky, the light fading, shadows gathering along the road, on the far side of the lake. The air is colder, with a hint of icy dampness that promises freezing rain rather than snow. Daniel has been gone for—what? Six hours? Where is he? Has he crossed the border? Is he safe?
For a second, I falter in my determined stride, and I have an urge to drop to my knees, to wrap my arms around myself andhowl. Mattie gives me a sharp glance, as if she senses my impulse, and I give her what I hope is a reassuring smile and keep walking.
It’s been years since I’ve driven the truck, probably decades. I learned to drive on it, bumping over back roads while my dad sprawled back in the passenger seat, the epitome of relaxed, except for his hand clutching the door handle.
Now, having slid open the door with a loud, protesting creak, I stand in the entrance of the barn, its shadowy, cobwebby interior hiding all sorts of useful things—a snow-blower, a lawnmower, a log splitter; all, I realize, running on gas. There are coils of rope and some ancient folding deckchairs, a couple of vintage-looking toboggans and a pair of cross-country skis I think I used when I was a teenager. I see about two dozen pails, used for maple syrup making, and a couple of ladders, along with the metal chute my parents used to load the firewood into the cottage’s cellar. There are some extra planks of the kind used for the cottage’s siding, and half a dozen spare windows too, propped against a wall. All of it, I think now, could have some purpose, some benefit…or not. Would I even know what to do with some extra planks, a spare window? I don’t think I would.
In the middle of all the junk is the truck, dented and battered, with the four-wheeler next to it. I have the keys in my hand.
“Mattie, Rubes, you guys can get in back,” I tell them; the truck has a double cab and can fit six people in a pinch, along with the open bed behind. The girls rather gingerly climb in, and Kerry swings up into the passenger seat next to me as if she’s ridden there a thousand times. I glance at her, taking in her set expression, her pink-tipped ponytail swaying as she moves. There is something hard and unfamiliar about her; instinctively, I don’t trust her. I have no memory of her beyond the hazy one I’m not sure is real. Is she even Darlene’s daughter? No, I’m being stupidly suspicious. I take a deep breath and start the truck.
No one speaks as I back slowly out of the barn; I’m concentrating on not hitting anything. Then we are on thedriveway, heading toward the open road, the first time either I or the girls have left the cottage since everything happened, bumping slowly over the rutted track.
