Page 67 of The Midnight Hour
I know he’s just trying to be realistic, but I can’t bear to hear it, and he must see that in my face, for he catches my hand, staying it with his own. “Alex. We need to be honest about this.”
I avert my gaze from his, recognizing it’s cowardly, but it’s the only way to keep from crying. “I know.”
“I have no idea how long I’ll last,” he continues steadily, “but I’m pretty sure this is terminal.”
A tear leaks from my eye and trickles down my cheek before dripping off my chin. “Don’t…” I whisper.
“I don’t mind dying,” Daniel tells me as he traces the lines of my palm with his thumb. “Maybe I should, I’m not that old, after all, but I’m not afraid. Tom helped me see that.”
I turn to face him. “Tom?”
“Yes, Tom, from the NBSRC and before. He’s a good man, a man of faith, and…” Daniel pauses, his throat working. “I was feeling guilty about…about something I did. Or really, something I didn’t do.” He closes his eyes. “And Tom helped me to forgive myself. He assured me that God had forgiven me. And I hadn’t even realized I’d needed that until he’d said it.”
“Daniel…”
“I don’t want to tell you,” he continues, his eyes still closed. “Not yet, anyway. Maybe not ever. I’m forgiven. That’s enough.”
“I killed a man,” I remind him, my voice wobbling all over the place. “A good man, a man of faith like your Tom, maybe. And I don’t think Sam has forgiven me for it, never mind God.”
“I think,” Daniel says, opening his eyes, “that you’re the one who can’t forgive. You can’t let it go, Alex, just like I couldn’t, for so long. You need to.”
I nod jerkily and slip my hand from Daniel’s. He’s tired, and I really can’t handle any more of this kind of conversation. I have to take it in small bursts in order to keep going, and, now more than ever, that’s what I need to do. “You should rest,” I tell him. “I’ll come back in an hour or so to check on you, give you something to eat.”
He gives a small, sad smile, and I know he understands why I’m pulling away, but he lets me do it.
“I love you,” I blurt. I wonder how many more times I’ll have a chance to say it.
“I love you, too,” he replies, and then his eyes flutter closed.
I’m feeling too raw to face everyone back at the main cabin, and so I end up going for a walk down by the lake. The ground is frozen hard, the lake a mix of ice, slush, and frigid water. Above the sky is a pale, hazy blue that looks like it might morph into the slate gray that promises snow.
I walk steadily, putting one foot in front of the other, doing my best not to think. As long as I keep my mind full of thisbuzzing blankness, I’ll be okay. I won’t give in to the grief, or the regrets that I wasn’t the wife I should have been to my husband. That I stayed angry and resentful when I could have been kind and, yes, forgiving. I have a lot to forgive myself for, and I’m not sure I can do it, or even if I should.
Eventually I run out of space; the shoreline becomes impassable, a thicket of fallen evergreens blocking the way, their dead branches looking like hundreds of skeletal fingers. Slowly I turn around, and come, to my surprise, face to face with Nicole.
“Have you been following me?” I demand, my breath a frosty puff of air between us.
She shrugs. “I’ve been walking in the same direction.”
I shake my head and start to walk past her. I’m not in the mood for Nicole’s peculiar brand of orneriness, not now.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, just as I walk by her.
I hesitate, and then, with my back still turned, I admit recklessly, “Daniel has cancer, from the radiation. He’s dying.” Saying it out loud makes me feel worse. This ishappening, and there’s nothing I can do about it. No matter how hard I fight or how fast I run, no matter how many promises I make to protect my family, to forge or force a way through…
Cancer will beat me.Us.
“I’m sorry,” Nicole says quietly. “That sucks.”
A ragged laugh escapes me, torn from my being. “Yeah, you could say that.”
She turns and falls into step alongside me, and, by silent, mutual agreement, we start walking back toward the camp. “You’re going to stay here, then?” she asks.
“If we’re allowed. They have to vote.”
“Yeah, there’s that.”
“What about you?”
