She stopped smiling and looked serious for a moment. "I only said I wasn't sure you were the father. Only you thought that meant I didn't want to see you."
"And now you can't. Now it's too late." He sounded more petulant than angry-weak, hurt, unsure, insecure.
She slipped her hand under his and brought it up slightly. Now was when she would show more of her true feelings, I thought, when she would show whether she, too, could be vulnerable. "Will," she dropped her voice a little more, till I could barely hear her, "don't make me beg or apologize for who I am. I've been wild, I know. But God Almighty, there's so much misery in this world, would you really begrudge me some fun, some little pleasure, to make me forget all the pain and ugliness once in a while?"
He didn't take his hand away. "No. I don't. I just thought it meant you didn't want to be with me."
"Will, we weren't married. You never talked like you wanted something more." The muscles in her arm flexed as she tightened her grip on his hand. "But all right, I'll tell you what I regret. I'll tell you what I'm sorry for. It's not for having sex with lots of people. You knew I did that, and you have no right to judge me for it." She bent her head down and forward, to catch his glance, since he was looking down. "The only thing I regret is not realizing that of the men I slept with, you were the only one who gave a shit about me. That was wrong and stupid and immature of me not to see, and that's how I hurt you, and why you misunderstood me. For that I'm sorry, Will. I'm very sorry."
He nodded and kept trying not to catch her gaze, I think because he knew as soon as he did look in her eyes-which sparkled more with tears in them now, thereby increasing their terrible loveliness and strength-all the initiative and power went to her, a prospect I felt sure he longed for as much as he dreaded. "It's all right. You don't have to apologize. Like you said, I didn't tell you what I felt or what I wanted. Milton just said, I don't talk to people enough, and they don't know what I'm up to. It was the same with you, so it wasn't your fault."
"It doesn't matter whose fault it was, Will. All I care about now is that you know I want to be with you."
He lifted his head. "All right. But now you can't. I don't see why you're telling me this."
He was looking in her eyes, and now she smiled again. She was in control. And I think I was as glad of that as Will was, though he didn't know it. "Will, I spend most my life out here, past the fence. Going back to the city is like a little vacation from my real job, from who I really am and what I'm supposed to do. So what's so impossible or unbelievable about me leaving too?" She tilted her head down a little and dropped the fateful and captivating smile. It was a final show of vulnerability and weakness, and an absolutely necessary one if it were to work out how they both wanted it to. "Unless you don't want me to?"
"Of course I do," Will exclaimed a little louder. He looked around at the crowds surrounding them, now very self-conscious. "Let's kind of discuss this later, okay?"
She smiled and blushed and let go of his hand. "Sure, Will."
I did not know what to make of such beautiful, overwhelming devotion, especially following the harsh and legalistic discussion over the fate of Will and ourselves. I could not conceive of how these people lived, constantly going back and forth between such extremes. As impressed as I was with the heights of their virtue and bravery, I really would be relieved to get away from them.
Although I was very glad to be going with Lucy, Will, and his friend, I had at first felt some disappointment that all my books, along with Lucy's violin, were back at the storage facility. I was also afraid that if we were marching into the wilderness, we wouldn't be able to carry such things. So my joy was greatly increased when they granted us a few days to prepare for our journey, and that when we left, it would be on a boat, floating down the big river and away from here forever.
I had the time to pick out the books that most interested me, and most importantly I had the time to finish this journal. I will give it to the very kind and intelligent-looking girl, Zoey, tomorrow when we leave. I think she would be interested in it. And since the story so much involves her and her community, it would be best if they had it. I am sure there will be plenty of other things for me to record, stories of other people and places, assuming the four of us are lucky enough to survive beyond this place. I fear there will be things as horrible as some of the events I've witnessed in the last few days. But I also hope that there will be things as wondrous and good as these strange, fascinating, but unfortunately very violent people whom we will now leave behind.
Epilogue
Will and Rachel drove up to the dock with their two fellow exiles, Truman and Blue Eye. They unloaded their few possessions into it-including, I was surprised to see, what I thought were the cases for a violin and a typewriter. It was only later that I found out what these things were doing there. When they were through, there was a long and very desperate farewell between Will and his parents. Ms. Wright tried hard to control herself, but you could tell her anguish was unbearable, and in the time I've known her since, she often seemed not the same person, but withdrawn and less full inside.
While they were saying goodbye, Rachel and the two zombies were sort of left alone. It was a good moment for me to speak to them. I walked over and hugged Rachel with all my strength. I pressed my face into her beautiful red locks and we both wept softly. "You take care, kid," she said. "You be strong and keep an eye on these people. You're good at that."
I stepped back, nodding and dabbing my eyes. There was nothing I could say to her to take in the enormity of her decisions. I felt little fear for her. Everything she did, she seemed to do out of love and hope, so what fear or regret could either of us have?
I turned and handed Truman the little pack that Will had given me when he went off in pursuit of the men he thought had attacked us. "Will gave me this to hold on to," I said. "I don't know whose they are, but perhaps you'd like to take them with you."
Truman took it and opened it, and he looked very happy to have it back, though he held back a smile. As with the typewriter and violin, I only found out later what the pack contained.
Truman set down the pack, and Blue Eye helped him get out a sheaf of papers from a bag he was carrying. They handed them to me.
"You wrote this?" I asked. He nodded. "You don't want it?"
He shook his head. He slowly put his finger on my chest and pressed.
"You want me to have it?"
He nodded.
All I could do that day was thank him for it. Later I would find out what he had written and all they had been through.
They then got on board the boat. It was a good sized sailboat, which the people of the River Nation, despite all their bellicose bluster, had helped us equip. Mr. Caine and my dad helped with the lines, and the boat pulled away, slowly at first, till the current nearer the middle of the river picked them up and they started moving faster. They left us behind, drifting serenely down the huge waters of the river-Rachel and Will, together with Truman and Blue Eye, who I later learned was called Lucy, though I suppose she herself would never know that name.
After that day, I spent the rest of the summer with the people who train our city's guard dogs. Sometimes I even had to wear the big, padded suit while the dogs learned to bite, hold, and take down an assailant. With my intense fear of canines, it was a punishment both more and less traumatic than I could've imagined. When I first heard of it, I could barely breathe, I was so terrified. And for the first several weeks that I worked with the animals, I'd come home and sob uncontrollably till I fell asleep. I almost succeeded in driving a wedge between Mom and Dad, and nearly got her to relent. But she had been so aghast that my silence had endangered me that she resisted my crying till it abated. Those weeks left me with a vivid memory of pain and fear to remind me never to ignore or keep secrets from others. But once I was past the first few weeks, working with the dogs was just another part of my life in our community, a necessary job, one that most of the time was more enjoyable than
some others. I never got to like dogs, but I respected and valued them after that.
Since that summer, I have often imagined all the adventures they must be having. I only imagine good ones-the lost cities they rediscover, the other people they meet, even other smart zombies who befriend them. It's wishful thinking, of course, and they may well all be long dead by now. But it is a hope, and as Milton said, of all other virtues or feelings, hope-together with love-is the one we rely on the most in our world. I think those four people had a purpose-first, to leave us a record of what they went through and learned that summer, and then to leave us with such a hope that their learning and growth were not for nothing, that it enabled them to accomplish more.
In my imaginings, they never stop or settle down, but just keep going. They find a bigger boat and cross the ocean and they take the paintings off the walls of the Louvre before they rot away completely; they hang them on the bridge of their ship so they can enjoy looking at them, and also so they can show them to others. Everywhere they go, people think what a strange and wondrous group they are-two living, two dead-and they send them on their way with more stories and good wishes-like an Odysseus, Dante, Ishmael, or Gulliver. They are always wandering, because, of course, they never quite fit anywhere they go, as they couldn't quite fit here among us. In that way, they're more like another wanderer, Cain, but I always feel that their road is quite different from his.
If they were marked by us for exile, I like to think they were also given a protective mark by something higher, more permanent, and wiser than we are. It was just that our rules, our categories, couldn't understand or accommodate people who were uncomfortable in society, or people who felt more comfortable with those of the other group than they did with those of their own. Will had been right-we do tend to treat the dead as either precious idols, or deadly demons. That they were still just people is too hard for us to comprehend; dealing with the few living people is complicated and confusing enough.
In my head, they don't just wander, of course. They each find their own happiness in their little ark. Lucy plays her violin to crowds all over the world, and people remember what beauty is and they want more of it. Truman keeps reading and learning, till eventually he writes new books and they drop these off at new ports for people to learn from. And Will and Rachel have a brood of children who grow up knowing this strange new world and only the good possibilities of it. For them, death and life coexist without fear or ignorance, and only killing is a terrible mystery they fear and shun. And for them, freedom is more a reality and necessity than we can ever know in our community.
Our life here in the city after they left has been much less adventuresome or dramatic than any of my fantasies. The people of the River Nation lived quite differently than we did. They had retained some government, strangely loose and harsh, and at times more restrictive and burdensome than we could tolerate or understand. And although everything was still traded by barter among them, because their villages had been spread out along the river, they also had a more complex, varied economy than ours.
When I later read Truman's journal, I smiled at Will's cornsilk cigarettes; tobacco became widely available once we began to trade with the River Nation, since their colonies extended down to southern areas where they could get the deadly but comforting little weed. Little by little, our lives have become intertwined and melded with those of this other "nation"-one nation combined with one non-nation, forming something for which we still have no name or word.
As we adapted to their economy, so they took up our ways of dealing with the dead. They realized that much of their growth and safety had been due to Milton clearing the dead out of nearby areas, and they were grateful to us, and also eager to give up their own practices of cruelly executing the deceased. Eventually, Milton got too old to constantly be out in the wilderness, rounding up the dead, but by then there were enough people that it could be done without him. The dead were also getting slower, tired, more fragile, and increasingly posed less and less of a threat.
Of course, my own individual life bears little resemblance to my fantasy of the four people who left us that day, except in the one detail of begetting children. I grew up and married, one of the first brides of our time to wear a real dress, one we had salvaged from the dead city; even though it was meant for the prom, it was beautiful, its sequins catching the sunlight just right. I sit here writing this now, my belly huge with my first child. I suppose that's part of what made me want to put everything down on paper-so the story of Truman, Lucy, Will, and Rachel wouldn't be lost for my children, but they would always know of the sacrifice, difficulties, wisdom, and mistakes of those four from years ago. It is my tribute to them, because I know I'm here only because of them, and as I learned that summer, gratitude and reverence are as important as hope, and as potent as love.
* * * * *
Índice
LIFE SENTENCE
Kim Paffenroth
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Life Sentence Page 22
