Page 27 of The Midnight Hour
I resist the urge to roll my eyes, or maybe even scream. First I’m accused of blaming her, and then of exonerating her. I can’t win. But I think I knew that already. “Why don’t you tell me what happened, then?”
She hunches her shoulders as she rests her chin on top of her knees. “She was splashing around in the shallows and I was watching her. Sam and Ruby were skipping stones, farther upstream. And I just…I don’t know, I just startedthinking…about what that guy, Mr.Stratton said, yesterday. About eighty percent of everybody dying.” She turns to face me again, and now her eyes are filled with tears. “That’s like, all our relatives, isn’t it? Aunt Sharon and Uncle Matt and Grandma and Grandpa…”
My sister and brother, Daniel’s parents. My throat turns tight as I swallow, nod.
“We can’t know for sure, but…”
“But probably,” Mattie finishes, dropping her chin back onto her knees. “Almost certainly. And what about my friends? And Drew. I don’t care about him anymore,” she assures me hurriedly, impatiently, “but I don’t want him to bedead.”
“No, of course not,” I reply quietly. “Neither do I.”
She lets out a huff of laughter like she doesn’tbelieve me, and I let it go. It’s hard enough to think about those we loved dying, never mind all the incidental people who made up the complicated fabric of our lives. Randomly, our mail carrier, of all people, drops into my mind—a smiling, cheerful woman with curly hair and freckles. If she caught me at the door when she was delivering a package, she’d always stopped to chat. It annoyed me a little, made me impatient, to have to suffer through five minutes of meaningless chitchat with someone I only knew a little bit. Now I wish I’d invited her in for tea and cookies.
Mattie suddenly lets out a choked sob as she doubles over. “I don’twantthis life,” she gasps out, the words torn from her, rending her apart. “I don’t want this life!I thought I could hack it if I was strong enough, but I can’t, Ican’t, I don’t want to.” She’s choking and gasping and retching, rocking back and forth, her arms wrapped around herself as tears spill from her eyes. I want to hug her, pull her into myself, and give her all the reassurance I know I can’t, because there simply isn’t any for me to give.
“Mattie…” I say helplessly, tears coming to my own eyes as I pat her shoulder; I know she won’t accept a hug. “Oh, Mattie.”
She shakes her head, rejecting what paltry comfort I can give. She’s been so strong, my girl, for so long, that I started to believe she was okay with it all. She could handle it, even as I made noises like I was worried she couldn’t. I’m angry with myself, and aching for my daughter, and there’s nothing I can do about anything.
We might both hate this life, but it’s the one we have.
Mattie straightens, wiping her eyes, and I feel her retreating from me, erecting her armor around herself like an invisible, iron shield. “Don’t take Phoebe from me,” she states flatly, and I struggle not to gape at her.
“Mattie, I?—”
“You don’t even likeher that much,” she throws at me, andnow I just blink. “I know I should have been watching her better, and she ran to you, but…but…” She sputters and trails away, and I’m pretty sure I know what she’s not willing to say.She’s mine. Phoebe has become my daughter’s security blanket, her teddy bear, and can I fault her for it?
“Trust me,” I tell her quietly. “I’m not taking Phoebe from you.”
She glares at me then, like I’ve said something wrong, and I resist the urge to throw up my hands. I can’t win. We could be back in Connecticut, arguing about her phone. I’m tired of this, tired of it all, but I’m the mom, so I have to keep soldiering on.
“We’re going to pack up,” I tell her, a little abruptly. “Leave tomorrow morning for North Bay.”
“North Bay…?”
“There’s a compound there, bigger than Buffalo. It could be a safe place for us.”
She narrows her eyes, like she’s thinking about asking me a million questions, and then she just gives a terse nod.
“Fine,” she says, and she rises gracefully to her feet, striding away from me without looking back.
I stare out at the now-placid stream and wonder why, when we most need to stick together, we all seem to be splintering apart.
We leave the next day at dawn, when the sky is still pink, and Phoebe is half-asleep in Mattie’s arms. The truck bed is loaded up, a tarp pulled tight across. There is a feeling in the air, almost metallic, of both expectation and dread.
Last night, Daniel and I lay awake in our tent and whispered the possibilities, like promises or threats, depending on how we felt.
“It might not even exist…” he warned me, or maybe himself. “Imean, as a safe place. It could just be an empty underground hangar full of Cold War computers and dust.”
“Or it could be filled with people we don’t want to meet, toting AR-10s and hand grenades.”
He rested his chin on my head. “Kind of stupid, to throw a grenade in an underground complex.”
I let out a soft breath of laughter. “True. But even if we make it there, they might just throw us out.”
“Or they might welcome us in and give us hot showers and a square meal. I’m thinking burgers. Organic beef from Alberta.”
It’s too tempting to imagine. “Or they might lock us inside,” I replied.
