by Noah Mann
“What are you doing?” I demanded, the heat of the growing blaze stinging the left side of my body.
“Eric...”
Her repetition of my name stoked a separate fire, one inside of me. I had to protect her. Had to do anything to keep her and our daughter safe.
“What do you want?!”
I screamed the demand at Olin, but he said nothing. Gave no answer. He just stood there, .30-30 aimed at my wife’s head, but his hateful gaze fixed on me as items in the kitchen began to smolder. Licks of smoke rose from the edges of the cabinets, and from a set of plastic bowls on the counter.
“Eric!”
I could stand it no more. I brought my Springfield up and aimed past Elaine, drawing a bead on the bridge of Olin’s nose. Still, he made no move, his jacket beginning to smoke, as was my wife’s thick sweatshirt. The inferno swirled into the kitchen, flames clawing toward us. Elaine screamed. Our daughter wailed. I heard myself cry out, cursing Olin as—
There was no sudden gasp or bolting upright in bed as I woke from the dream. From the nightmare. My eyes simply opened and it was over.
I rolled toward Elaine’s side of the bed, but she was not there. My heart did not leap with fear. The very sweet sound from across the hallway soothed any worry that might have swept over me.
A moment later I stood in the doorway of our daughter’s room, looking in at my wife singing a soft lullaby as she fed our daughter, a blanket knitted as a gift by a neighbor pulled around them against the slight chill inside.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked, interrupting her quiet serenade when she saw me leaning on the doorjamb.
“Just heard you,” I said, smiling.
It was odd, I thought, that I could so easily wipe the feelings of such a terrible, horrible dream from my waking thoughts so soon after experiencing them. I’d had disturbing dreams before, only rarely, including one of Neil gleefully throwing himself off a cliff. Elaine had woken me from that dream as I thrashed and cried out. So why hadn’t I reacted in a similar way just now?
“I swore I’d never breast feed,” Elaine told me, as if sharing some minor secret. “It was only going to be bottles and formula.”
“When in Rome,” I said.
She nodded and let her gaze settle on our daughter’s blue, inquisitive eyes. Eyes that stared back into her mother’s. I could have stayed focused on the very peaceful and touching moment before me, but I couldn’t.
Olin...
The man had invaded my sleep in the most horrible way, and I’d slipped out of the dream without so much as a quickened heartbeat or a damp brow. How was that possible? I’d just subconsciously imagined myself standing by as a fire, set by the man who’d murdered Neil, consumed my family.
Maybe he didn’t set it...
That bit of analysis came without warning, or request. I almost laughed at myself for attempting to decipher the why of the dream that vexed me now. If I’d been falling, wouldn’t that have been easier? Those nightmares were about something unfinished, if I remembered correctly. But what did this dream suggest?
As I stared at my wife and daughter, at my perfect family that existed in an imperfect world, I began to come to some understanding. At least that was what my limited knowledge of the acts of the subconscious allowed me to theorize.
Abandonment.
That was my fear. That I would not be there for my family. That, if they were faced with some life threatening event, I would be absent. It would be as if I had to stand by and watch them suffer. Or perish.
And, at the same instant that I came to accept that interpretation, I knew exactly what was spawning it.
“The captain is going to ask me to go to Remote,” I said.
Elaine looked easily up from our daughter, no shock or anxiousness about her. I’d shared with her what had transpired at the Defense Council. The birth of our daughter had kept her from attending the recent meetings, but she was still part of the group, and we’d all worked to keep her in the loop.
“I told them that the buildings out there might have issues.”
“I remember,” Elaine said.
One of the last scouting patrols she’d gone on, prior to dialing back her physical activity just two months before giving birth, was to Remote. On that scavenging foray she’d been with a group that did not include me, a reality that, at that point in her pregnancy, I found difficult to accept, much less embrace.
“She didn’t say anything at the meeting, but...”
“But you have the experience to inspect what’s there,” Elaine said.
I nodded. My past life as a contractor, overseeing everything from the building of houses to commercial business parks, and the roads and infrastructure which connected them to civilization, made me uniquely qualified. If fact, there was not another person in Bandon who’d supervised such projects. We had carpenters and plumbers and electricians, but sizing up the suitability of Remote as a viable settlement would require a skillset of more depth and breadth. My skillset.
“I just don’t want to be away from you and Hope,” I said.
“Sometimes you’ll have to be,” Elaine reminded me. “Life won’t stop just because of her.”
Her...
I looked to our daughter. My wife was right—life could not stop. Nor slow down. It had to move forward. We, as a town, had to move forward. Expanding our footprint on the earth as the color green returned to the planet, and all the creatures that could thrive in a resurgent ecosystem, was imperative. Our future depended upon being successful in this first attempt at that.
More importantly, our daughter’s future depended on it.
“So you’re okay with it,” I said. “It will be maybe a day. We’ll be back before dark.”
As she cradled our daughter against her breast, she reached out with her free hand. Toward me. I took it in mine and we each gave a little squeeze. A sign of reassurance. Of acceptance.
“I’m okay with anything you need to do,” Elaine said.
In the worst of times, with the world teetering on the edge of destruction, I’d fallen in love with Elaine Morales. What I saw before me, and felt in my hand, validated that event. I was a lucky man. Maybe the luckiest.
Thirteen
Schiavo couldn’t take her eyes off of Hope as she held her.
She’d stopped by just as Elaine was heading out for a walk, asking if she wanted to stay since there was something she needed to discuss. But my wife had waved off the invitation, signaling that she already knew what was about to transpire. I sensed that the captain knew this from their brief, very pleasant exchange.
There was small talk at first, and a request to hold our daughter, as she was now, sitting in the padded rocker near the fireplace, a pair of logs crackling in the hearth. Finally, after a few minutes, she looked up to where I stood, elbow on the mantle.
“Fletch, I need to ask a favor of you.”
“Remote,” I said.
“I need you to come with me and Specialist Hart,” Schiavo said. “Tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
There was no need to delay sharing the decision I’d already made. I was only slightly less all right with it than Elaine, which, had she known that, would have soothed Schiavo. Her nearly formal visit to our home had been, I suspected, meant to assuage any fears my wife had about the mission.
The mission...
It was that, I supposed. We would be venturing beyond our borders, almost to the limits of where we’d sent patrols, just one of those previously going as far as Camas Valley, a larger town beyond Remote. We would be armed, of course, which was as prudent as it was within our own borders.
“You’re the only person in town who can give an honest appraisal of the structures,” Schiavo said. “I talked to Mike DeSantis about this, and he agreed to let the group know what we were doing.”
“I’m sure Rebecca will find some fault with it,” I told her.
“Civilizations without rebels turn stale,” Schiavo said.
It was a simple defense of the woman who’d come at me with a fire in her belly. But it was also true.
“I know this will be hard,” Schiavo said, gazing down at my daughter in her arms. “Leaving Elaine and...this.”
This...
She was not choosing a vague descriptor of Hope for any purpose. Instead, I knew, she was making note of the fact that it was more than a child she was cradling. More than a gender. More than a species, even.
A life was sleeping sweetly in her embrace. A life which she might have known in her own home, with Martin. But that did not come to pass. A twist of fate, some unseen medical complication, or any of a number of factors had taken their child before the world could welcome it.
“You’re a lucky man, Fletch.”
Again, there was no contemplation necessary of the statement she’d made.
“I am.”
The front door opened and I looked up to see Elaine. For just an instant she stood there, the chill of the season washing past her as she looked at us.
“I didn’t tell you, Elaine,” Schiavo began, “but you’re looking wonderful.”
“Thanks. The walk felt good.”
Schiavo shifted in her chair, trying to stand. I stepped away from the mantle and eased our daughter from her so she could rise unencumbered. When she was up, her gaze met Elaine’s, some silent understanding in the exchange.
“When do you leave?” Elaine asked.
“Tomorrow,” Schiavo told her.
My wife smiled and gave a small nod of acceptance. Maybe of approval, as well.
“I’ll see you about six,” Schiavo told me. “We’ll pick you up.”
“I’ll be ready.”
She gave Elaine a quick hug and left us.
“She would have been a good mother,” my wife said, watching Schiavo get behind the wheel of her Humvee and drive away.
I didn’t disagree with her. In fact, I could see in the woman exactly what Elaine had. But I wondered if she would have chosen to remain in her position, and retain her rank, if she and Martin had welcomed a child into the world. It might have been a sexist reaction to the intense connection I’d witnessed between her and Hope, but there was also the reality of the matter. She’d been through a lot. More, in fact. Enough for several lifetimes in the few years since the blight had ravaged our world. That totality of experience, and struggle, and pain, made me think that, had Angela Schiavo, Captain, United States Army, welcomed a child, she very well might have considered her service complete and would have chosen to embrace fully the new adventure of motherhood.
At the very least, I knew that she would have adored having that choice to make.
“Do you want some hot chocolate?” Elaine asked.
A recent scavenging expedition testing the limits of our deserted northern neighbor, Coos Bay, had come across a tractor trailer overturned off a side road. Among its cargo which had survived years exposed to the elements were sealed containers of powdered drink mix packets. Fruit punch. Apple cider. Tea. And hot chocolate. One just had to add water and enjoy.
Enjoy...
It was odd to think that something so simple, and so common in the old world, could bring momentary happiness and satisfaction still. I figured that it was the normalcy of the act—drinking a favorite beverage. All it took to reconnect to a past pleasure was that. Perhaps we would begin producing something like it in the future. There was talk of restarting different industries on scales we could manage. Automobile production using refurbished parts from the countless wrecks strewn about the landscape. A town-wide cellular phone system. Even an air service, if parts could be located to repair the three planes and two helicopters which had been grounded at the town’s airport since before I’d arrived with Neil, Grace, and Krista.
There was much we could do, and would do, but at this moment, in our house, we were going to have a couple mugs of hot chocolate.
“I’d love some,” I said.
Elaine kissed me, and then our daughter, before slipping into the kitchen and setting a kettle of water to boil. As I waited for her to return with the steaming mugs, I sat again, this time in the rocker Schiavo had vacated, Hope in my arms, asleep. I sensed every rise and fall of her breathing, every quickened beat of her heart as I held her against my chest. My daughter. The new love of my life.
“It’s going to be all right,” I said to her, my voice soft. “I promise.”
It was a natural assurance to offer, even though my daughter could not process the words, or the meaning in them. But I meant what I said. If it was in my power to do so, no matter the cost or any obstacles facing me, I would leave this world for her better than it was at the moment she’d come into it. That was my purpose. I would die for her.
I would also kill for her.
Part Two
Signs
Fourteen
“What do you think you’re doing?”
I asked the question, issued the challenge, almost too loud, risking that I would wake our baby in the room just across the hall. But as I returned to our bedroom after a quick shower, what I found deserved no less a reaction than what I offered.
“Getting strong,” Elaine answered on the upstroke of a pushup, elbows tucked close to her ribcage.
“For what? A triathlon?”
She pumped her body up a half dozen more times as I watched, incredulous.
“You just had a baby.”
“I had a baby two weeks ago.”
“I remember,” I said. “I was there.”
She angled her head toward me, flashing a look, that kind of look, one that both scolded and reassured at the same time. I’d grown accustomed to the visual cues Elaine wielded like arrows from a quiver. This was her ‘I love you but back off’ look. The smart thing to do now would be to back off and let her finish her workout.
I wasn’t that smart.
“All I’m suggesting is that you don’t have to be super woman.”
The sun hadn’t yet risen and already she was up after a night of what could be generously termed sleep interrupted by feedings, and she was pushing herself to achieve the level of physical fitness she’d maintained before getting pregnant. I had no doubt that she could, and that she would, but her drive to do so while also caring for a newborn was concerning.
That she was ignoring that very concern was, also, pissing me off more than just a little.
“Elaine...”
“I put extra gloves in your pack,” my wife informed me as she transitioned from pushups to sit-ups, hopping to a crouch and swinging her legs between her arms until she was flat on her back. “And a scarf.”
I flashed a look that she missed, because if she’d glimpsed it her workout might have changed to her landing a roundhouse kick across my jaw.
“I just don’t want you to do too much while I’m gone,” I said.
“You’re going to be away for, what, twelve hours? I can manage half a day.”
Putting it that way, my worry did sound more than a bit ludicrous.
“Okay,” I said. “I get it. I get it. Just...”
She didn’t pause her rapid fire execution of crunches as she looked to me, waiting for what gem I might speak to begin digging myself still deeper into the hole I was already neck deep in.
“No bench pressing the pickup,” I said.
With a stone cold expression as her face bobbed up and down with her quickly folding torso she gave me her answer.
“I can’t make any promises.”
How could I not love that?
* * *
The Humvee idled in the street as I stood on the porch with the first love of my life.
“Give Hope a kiss for me when she wakes up,” I said.
In advance of that, Elaine kissed me, for a long moment. I half expected Schiavo to order Hart to lean on the vehicle’s horn to break up our dawn make out session.
“Be careful,” Elaine said as she eased back from our embrace.
It was a natural admonition
to offer, and she’d said the same to me on many occasions, and me to her, but it never failed to remind me that it marked a point of separation. She would not be there to watch my back, nor I hers. It was an unusual but necessary fact of life that occurred from time to time.
“I’ll be back tonight,” I assured her.
“I know.”
There was no horn blaring behind, but a quick surge in the Humvee’s engine signaled that Hart was revving it to get my attention without waking the neighborhood.
“Gotta go,” I said.
She gave me a last, soft kiss on the cheek and I lifted my backpack, carrying it and my AR down the walkway to the waiting military vehicle. I slid my gear into the back seat next to me and closed the door, watching out the window as we pulled away, Elaine waving in the glow of the porch light.
“Good morning, Fletch,” Schiavo said from the front passenger seat, reaching back, a silvery thermos in hand. “Coffee?”
I shook off the offer, my last glimpse of Elaine, of our house, ending as Hart steered us around the corner. Schiavo put the container of coffee in a holder that had been added to the Spartan dash, a stack of disposable cups next to it.
“Actually, fill me up,” I said.
She poured me a generous cup and handed it back. I sipped the steaming black liquid in silence as we headed for the highway.
“We’ll have you back for a late supper,” Schiavo told me, very obviously sensing the reason for my mildly sullen mood.
“Fletch...”
“Yes, Trey?”
Hart glanced back from his place at the wheel, just quick enough that I caught his very true and boyish smile. That one so young was charged with keeping men and women alive in combat still amazed me, but I’d seen him do just that. Schiavo was here because of his quick and steady treatment after being wounded as we sailed toward Juneau. Here, though, he was offering something else that could soothe pain—words.
“I didn’t get a chance to congratulate you,” Hart said.
