Will Rise from Ashes

by Jean M. Grant

  “Shit!”

  “Mom! I need my helmet!”

  I got the car under control and slammed my foot on the accelerator. “Come on, car. Come on!” I kept one eye on the road ahead, one on the truck in the rearview mirror. I quickly gained distance from it. Belatedly, I reached behind and got his helmet. The speedometer read eighty miles per hour. I was glad for the straight highway. I maintained that speed for ten minutes, until I was certain I could no longer see the truck behind me.

  Will was quiet, not outwardly frightened. “Bad guys?” he asked, holding Douglas to his chest.

  “Yes.”

  I grabbed my pill bottle in the cup holder and took one with a swallow of water. Four pills left now.

  I then slowed to a reasonable seventy miles per hour and drove until I saw daylight.

  Chapter Five

  A Gale of Change

  May, Last Year

  “Mom’s in the garden, Dad,” Will hollered down the steps as he entered the house from the basement and looked through the front windows. “She has her ear things in,” he added with a thumb point.

  Dad closed the garage door and strode up the basement steps behind Will. Dad’s forehead wrinkled in that weird way it did when he was thinking about something and was worried, but when he didn’t want to talk about it. Will turned away; he knew that look. Susie was a marvel with helping him understand cues and facial expressions. They would sit there on his bedroom carpet swiping through the tablet program on “funny faces” as Susie called it. Or she would use her index cards with different faces or scenarios and he had to talk about how the person might feel. It was difficult, but Susie always said, “Fantastic!” Sometimes he’d get distracted and count all the birth marks on Susie’s face. She had a grouping of them on her left cheek in the shape of the Big Dipper! He giggled about it. She giggled with him.

  Still, many times, he didn’t understand all the face things. He tried. Mom and Dad wanted him to try.

  Dad mumbled something and went outside to talk with Mom.

  Finn bounced into the living room as soon as Will came in. “How was Explorers Club? Did you have fun? Did you see the fire engines? Wanna play with me? I already set the board up.”

  “Not now,” Will said, shrugging off his light jacket and tossing it on the floor. He kicked off his shoes. He looked through the open front window and tapped his hands together. Two, two, one, two, he counted with each tap. Two, two, one, two.

  A cool spring breeze floated in, like a kiss on his cheeks. He loved the wind. Except when it was super icy cold. Then it was no fun. He went out in the snow and cold anyway. Winter was his favorite season…he could build snow volcanoes. Summer was nice, too. Sand volcanoes.

  He listened as Dad approached Mom. He stopped tapping, his heart feeling less thumpy, and he traced the metal screen with his pointer finger, drawing concentric squares.

  “Hey, hon,” Dad said with a wave. Mom glanced up from her digging—she was removing another dead grouping of lupine that didn’t make it through winter. Those were her favorite flowers. Except, for some reason, they didn’t like to grow in her gardens, and it made her sad. She explained to him once that the soil was likely not acidic and sandy enough. Even though their neighbors had loads of lupine, Mom’s just never survived. It was a mystery. A few dead flowers lay strewn about the oval-shaped garden. Mom had four gardens filled with lupine, lilies, daisies, phlox, and cat mint, which attracted bees. He didn’t like bees. And nothing was blooming much yet since it was still May.

  Flowers made Mom happy. Dad liked to bring her flowers.

  Mom removed the earbuds from her ears. “How was it?”

  Dad whispered, his back to Will’s vantage point. Mom’s face didn’t look happy now. Dad was probably telling her about the field trip. It didn’t go well.

  He began tapping on the window frame. Two, two, one, two.

  They’d visited the fire and police stations, which were joined into one community building. He was doing okay even though it was huge, bright, and there were many things to look at. Then one of the boys laid on the horn in the fire engine. Loud and sudden, it scared him so much that he almost peed his pants. He didn’t. Only babies did that. It hurt his ears, and he ran out of the garage. Dad chased him, but he ran into the hallway and found an open room and hid under a table. He cried and growled. It was blaring! His fingers danced thinking about it.

  He tapped. Two, two, one, two.

  A nice lady police officer convinced him to come out five minutes later.

  That’s why it hadn’t been good.

  He ran a finger over the window screen. There was a spot where it was torn. He wondered if a bee could squeeze through the hole.

  Dad kept talking to Mom, a quiet mumble lost on the wind. He strained to hear.

  Finn came over beside Will. “Come on, Will! Let’s play. I’ll let you have Yellowstone.”

  Will loved Yellowstone on the National Parks Property game. It was the best one. It usually helped him win the game if somebody landed on it.

  “Okay,” Will conceded, but not without another look at Mom. Her face was the “sad” face card from Susie’s pack. He wished she wasn’t always sad.

  A few minutes later, there was commotion as Mom and Dad came in.

  “You’re being unreasonable,” Dad said.

  “No, I’m not! It’s not suited for him. We need to pull him,” Mom said.

  Will always heard their arguments when they thought he couldn’t.

  Mom rattled things in the kitchen, opening and closing cabinet doors and slamming the fridge shut.

  “I think we should try a little longer,” Dad said.

  Mom’s voice got shrill when she was angry or sad. Dad’s was blunt, but also angry. “I think it’s time.”

  Dad thumped a hand on the island. “Fine. Fine.” He then left the room to sit by Will and Finn. “How’s the game?” he asked evenly.

  “Good!” Finn said. He rolled a pair of twos and landed on Yellowstone. “I’m buying Yellowstone.”

  Will screeched, “No! That’s mine. You promised. You cheated on that roll. Dad, he cheated!” He stood and kicked at the game board.

  “Now, Will, he landed there fairly,” Dad began.

  “No! He always cheats! He said he’d let me have Yellowstone! You always take his side. You and Mom always take his side!” His head buzzed. He always got Yellowstone. It was his. Finn said he could have it! If he didn’t get it, then he couldn’t put the four houses and the one station on it. Then he couldn’t win. He didn’t buy the Acadia or the Glacier or the Everglades properties because he had enough money to buy Yellowstone. He kicked at the neatly lined money in front of him and it flew into Finn’s messy pile of money. “That’s not fair!”

  “Hey!” Finn shrieked in response.

  Will’s pulse whirred as he bolted from the room. He didn’t run outside anymore when this happened. Mom used to tell him to go to his room to “calm down.” In his room, there was no buzzing, or annoying brothers, or moms and dads arguing. His plushy bed helped him drown all that rubbish.

  This was Finn being unfair! Will had planned it all—why did Finn lie? This is how they played the game. This is how it always happened. He always set his money aside to buy that property and his station.

  He slammed his door and stomped around his room. After a few minutes, he went to his desk and opened his crayon box. He dumped the crayons on the floor, sat, and began lining them up. Each crayon, sharp and brand new because he never used them to color, was aligned perfectly straight on the bottom. It looked like a fence. He shuffled them around to put them in rainbow order, starting with shades of red and pink. He finished with black, except that was not a rainbow color, technically. In fact, brown and white and pink weren’t either, so he removed all of those, too.

  “Hard day, huh?” Mom said, opening the door and poking her head in.

  Will growled through clenched teeth and walked to his tall dresser where he kept all his prized item
s. He had his gold—well, not real gold, but all the yellow toys he could find. He put them in a box—Lego bricks, marbles, scraps of yellow paper, fake gold coins, gold pipe cleaners, and a few of Finn’s yellow cars. He shoved the box aside and thumbed through his karate belts. Mom kept all his old ones in a dresser drawer as he earned each new belt. He had white, yellow, orange, and he was now on purple, and next would be blue.

  “Look who’s here.”

  Snow, their black cat, came into the room and jumped on Will’s bed. Yeah, real snow was white, but Finn helped name the shelter cat they had taken in and he knew Will liked snow and weather and stuff, so they’d named him that. Will thought it was funny. A black cat named Snow. He would think Midnight would be a better name, but Mom said to humor Finn.

  Will sat next to Snow and patted him. Snow purred louder with each stroke. Snow was a friendly cat, always sleeping in his bed. Mom got grumpy with Snow in the mornings when he’d howl for food or barf. He always bugged her. Mom was always tired in the morning and wanted her coffee. Once, she tripped over him and hurt her ankle.

  He scratched Snow behind his ears.

  “He doesn’t like to see you sad,” Mom said, with a slow approach.

  Will kept his gaze away. “Finn always cheats.”

  Mom didn’t say anything.

  “You and Dad always take his side. You baby him and don’t treat me the same way.”

  Mom sat beside him and wiggled her feet. She wore Dad’s oversized slippers. “It’s hard when things don’t go the way we plan,” she said in her oh-so-soft voice that he liked. Mom always understood. Even though Will knew his brain was different from hers.

  “Today was horrible. I mess up at everything. I’m a rubbish pile. I should go live on Mars,” Will said, sniffling. His head buzzed. Snow’s purrs vibrated in his hand.

  “Some days have a lot of hard stuff. But there’s always some good.”

  “No, there isn’t.” He stroked Snow. “Mom, what were you fighting with Dad about?”

  She didn’t answer.

  After a minute, well, sixty-five seconds to be exact, she said, “What are the three things that are always free, Will? No matter how hard our days get, we have them?”

  “Sunshine, oxygen, and love,” he said, repeating the words she always told him when he was sad.

  She rubbed his back. He leaned into her arm and let a few tears fall. “Every day is bad.”

  “Not every day, honey. Not all day. We have the sun. We never have to ask for it. It always greets us each day, and granted, sometimes there are clouds, but it’s there. Each day dawns anew. The sun rises.”

  “The sun doesn’t rise. The Earth revolves around it.”

  Mom chuckled lightly. “Yes, that’s true. And oxygen. We have air to breathe. Every single day. There’s no breathable air on Mars, is there?”

  “Nope.”

  “And we have love. You have my love, Daddy’s love, God’s love, Grandma and Grandpa’s love, and Finn’s love.”

  “I don’t like Finn.”

  “Finn loves you and you love him even when he doesn’t behave the way you like.”

  Will cried harder, the buzzing returning. “I always get Yellowstone!”

  Mom rubbed his cheek. “I know, Will.”

  He rested his head in her lap as he continued to stroke Snow, knowing that in a few minutes the buzzing would cease, and he would feel better. Mom and Snow always made him feel better.

  ****

  Present Day

  We put in a long day of driving, stopping, detouring. Will’s resilience continued to amaze me. I found myself looking over my shoulder at the road behind me, although nobody followed. Soon, I’d create my own tally sheets like Will did for foghorn blares and snow days, except mine would be about how many asshole encounters or mishaps I’d have on this trip. Colorado felt so far away.

  Well, there was that nice man who had helped with the tire. I wondered where he was now.

  We continued south on Route 57 in southern Illinois. There was no way in hell I was going north to Chicago or St. Louis. South it was. Cities tensed my nerves before the eruption. I couldn’t imagine the disorder now.

  “How much longer, Mom?” Will shifted in his seat.

  “Soon. How are you hanging in there, my love bug?” I was about to say “little buddy,” Harrison’s own name for him, but I stopped myself.

  “Okay.”

  “Do you have questions?”

  He looked out the window, thoughts clearly beleaguering him.

  “Those guys wanted to hurt us. Why? Did they want to steal our car?” He tapped a finger on his knee.

  “Maybe.” Or more.

  “Why?”

  “Some people do bad things, especially during scary times like this.”

  “Like those people who stole our stuff?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you think it all looks like? How wide do you think the caldera is now?”

  I bit my lip. Not exactly the questions I sought, but it was my own fault for asking. At least we were done talking about the scum of the world. “I’m not sure, Will. It’ll be a while before they clean the destruction and help all the people.” It may be a decade, I thought. “Then the scientists will study it.”

  “In nine years, I’ll be old enough to go to college or maybe I can work there, too, and study it. The eruption wasn’t gigantic enough to destroy the planet, but it could cause a volcanic winter like the eruption in 1816,” he said. “Maybe that’s why the leaves were already changing color in New York.”

  I refrained from stating it was too soon for the climate to be affected. Regardless, it was not the end of the world, as long as society didn’t become unhinged.

  A silent rhythm dominated our drive. Will’s ability to keep himself quietly entertained was a respite from the boisterousness when the boys were together.

  My phone buzzed in my cup holder. I nearly swerved off the road. Fumbling, I lifted the phone. My first thought was of Finn and Brandon. My soul danced with hope when I saw it was Sarah. I still hadn’t gotten through to Dr. Martin. “Hello?” I said, the word croaking from disuse of my voice for the better part of the day.

  “AJ! Thank goodness, honey! Where are you now?” Sarah breathed into the phone.

  “We’re in Illinois now, I think.”

  “You think?”

  I stifled a strained laugh, but then said seriously, “Brandon?”

  “No, hon. I’m sorry.”

  Hope fizzled.

  She said, “It’ll be okay. Finn’s got him.”

  “Shouldn’t that be the other way around?”

  “Nah. Finn’s your protector. He’ll take care of Brandon.”

  There was a pause. My mind churned.

  “You didn’t gather your wits and turn around yet?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  Sarah sighed and said calmly, “AJ, if anyone is capable of handling this, Brandon can. He’s Mr. Fix-it, right? Give him a straw and duct tape, and he’ll build you a bridge.”

  I nodded, though she couldn’t see me. Brandon was former Special Ops, but what if he was hurt, too? Or worse? Special Ops doesn’t give you an invisible shield from raining cement in an earthquake. “Yeah, something like that,” I offered half-heartedly.

  “You two and your crazy shenanigans, right?” She laughed quietly.

  “Yeah.” I recalled the times Brandon and I would play in the yard, reenacting moments from a TV show to get us out of some pretend jam with a villain.

  “How are you hanging in there? Is Will keeping you straight?”

  “Mom, I have to pee. Can we stop soon?” Will interrupted.

  My gaze passed to the rearview mirror. “Yes, honey,” I said to him. If he had to pee, he meant it. If it had been Finn, we’d be stopping every hour. Will fidgeted with the top of his collared polo shirt. It was fastened to the highest button, and for probably the fiftieth time today, he tucked it closer to his chin, making sure his neck was covere
d. At least I had convinced him to wear a short-sleeved shirt instead of his favorite quarter-zippered fleece. It was too damn hot! I’d compromised on that sensory battle.

  “Yeah, he is. How…are things in California? How are Briar and Amelia?” It was a stupid distracting question, but I needed to talk about anything else other than that. And there was no way in hell I was going to tell her about all that had transpired in the past few days.

  Sarah’s singsong voice came through. “Same crazies, different day; dry and warm. Things are okay, except for the travel bans. No ash here, though. Forecasts project it moving eastward, I think. I’m no weather expert like Will. Our television reception and the wireless connection have been on the fritz.”

  “Sarah, I’m—” I stopped myself. I didn’t want to talk about my own difficulties in front of Will.

  “It will be okay.” Her voice was a soothing blanket. She was surprisingly composed, despite not knowing where her husband was, but as an air force wife, she was already conditioned for these types of situations.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Girl, a volcano just blew up. It’s gonna be hard. Hang in there, honey. Your boy knows that you’re coming. You will get to him. Brandon has him. You have the best lucky charm of all with you, too. You have the master cartographer and mini-scientist with you! He will get you there.”

  “Yup, he will.”

  “You can do this, AJ. You’re a fighter. As are your boys.”

  I nodded. “I can do this.”

  “I can’t convince you to turn around though, can I?”

  My conscience tugged at me. “No. I have to do it, Sarah.”

  “You’ve got this. Love you, girl.”

  “Love you, too.” The earpiece crackled, followed by silence. Again, my phone showed half a bar of reception. “Thank you,” I said to the blinking time on the screen. Her sweet words were a power drink. Hope bubbled in my chest, even if only momentary.

  A few minutes later, I found a campground. A shower tonight would be divine. I weaved my hand through my oily, haphazardly wavy hair. Campgrounds had people. Safety in numbers. The sign advertised it as family-friendly.