Page 66 of The Midnight Hour
What other answer can he give? He keeps her gaze as he answers.
“You can trust me,” he promises her.
TWENTY-FIVE
ALEX
Neither Daniel nor I speak as I withdraw my hand from his stomach. He gives me a grimace of apology and lowers his shirt while I sink onto the edge of the bed.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask in a whisper.
He lets out a little sigh as he straightens his t-shirt. “I didn’t want to add to everything, but…I suspected you already knew.”
My head drops toward my chest, and I close my eyes. He’s right, I did know, even if I was trying my best not to.
“From the radiation?” I have to force the words out.
“I’d guess so.” He sighs. “I wasn’t as honest with you as I should have been. When I went to get Sam and then Jenny there were a lot of people fleeing the fallout. Some people even had burns…I mean, it’s not something you can see, so I was always wondering—is it bad? How bad? Am I breathing it in right now? What will it do to me?” He shakes his head. “I just didn’t know. I tried to keep them both indoors as much as possible, either in the car or a house, but…”
I’m both completely unsurprised and deeply shocked. Of course the radiation was that bad. I wanted to believe Daniel’s glib assurances, gleaned from sci-fi series and disastermovies, but did I really accept his version, deep down? No, I never did. Which means…
“Do you think Sam…” I begin, and then find I can’t finish that sentence.
Daniel gives me a look of mute appeal. “I did my best, Alex, I swear, but of course I don’t know. I just don’t know.” He looks abject, and so very apologetic, and I feel guilty for making him think this could, in any way, be his fault. Dear God, I think, what sort of wife have I been?
In any case, I tell myself, my son isn’t sick like my husband. Sam isn’t struggling to breathe or to eat; he isn’t falling asleep at six o’clock at night. His skin isn’t gray; his body isn’t gaunt and wasting away.
Silently I reach over and take Daniel’s hand. He twines his fingers through mine, and we sit there for a few minutes without saying a word, because it feels like there is nothing more to say.
We can’t leave this camp, I realize belatedly, with Daniel this sick. Will Vicky and the others understand, or will they still put it to a vote? And how sickisDaniel? I glance at his familiar, beloved face, now so weary and lined. Will it be a matter of weeks, months, more? Or maybe less…maybe just days. Like with the radiation, there’s no way to know.
A sound escapes me, ragged and hitching, and Daniel squeezes my fingers.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I shake my head. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who should be sorry. I made you?—”
“You didn’t.”
“If you hadn’t gone?—”
“Then we wouldn’t have Sam back.”
He sounds so certain, but some part of me is determined to rail against it all, finding fault and blame because for some inexplicable reason that feels easier.
“Still,” I insist stubbornly. “I shouldn’t have asked that of you.”
“Alex.” Daniel’s voice is gentle, and it forces me to look him full in the face—his tired eyes are full of love and sorrow. “I would have gone anyway.”
Another sound escapes me, half hiccup, half sob, and I know I can’t take any more, not now. And Daniel can’t either, I tell myself, because he looks exhausted. So I change the subject, the switch as abrupt and obvious as a screech of tires, and say, “Let me tell you about this place. It’s kind of crazy, but in a good way.”
Daniel smiles and settles back against the pillows. “Okay,” he replies. “Tell me.”
I tell him about the community and all its members, the solar panels and the artesian well, the farm fields and greenhouses, the fishing and the boats, the fact that this place is pretty much self-sustaining, or soon will be.
“Vicky said if we wanted to stay, they would put it to a vote,” I finish before adding firmly, “I think we should stay.”
Daniel smiles and shrugs. “Well, I don’t think I’m going anywhere in a hurry.”
