by Pike, JJ
How would she get caught out? Who would tell him what had really happened? There was no saying there even was any “down the line” available to them. She needed him to stay and help. She couldn’t be a team of one.
“How did she get a hole in her chest?” Nigel shook his head. “I know how. I mean, who? Who did that to her?”
“She got caught in the crossfire,” said Betsy. A straight-up lie, but in the name of the greater good. Her God would forgive her. “The other people? The ones lying the other side of Cassie? They came as looters. They knew we were prepared for the worst. They brought guns and ammo. Enough ammo to take on a whole platoon.” She paused. Was he softening? Did he buy her story?
“They killed her?”
Betsy kept her lips shut tight, but her eyes told the lies that were necessary.
“What a total waste.” Nigel deserved better, but that wasn’t what Betsy had to offer now that the Everlee children were all solely dependent on her. She realized with a start that she would have lied to anyone about anything if it meant keeping Midge out of danger. She’d turned a corner she never thought she’d turn. Being a parent—even for a short time, even only “in loco”—gave her enough of a reason to let the lie stand. She kept her mouth shut while Nigel said his goodbyes to his friend.
“We need to catch up with Fred…” said Betsy.
“How can I help?” He was a deeply decent human being.
“See the cork board on the wall? Get me the keys with the green fob.”
Nigel was there and back in a jiffy.
“I’m sending Sean, because I need you here.”
“Right.”
Betsy climbed into Jim’s beloved Triumph TR6 and revved the engine, easing the car into their driveway. Jim would be scandalized if he knew Sean was about to drive it through the woods, but not if he knew how important the mission was. Betsy handed off the keys to Sean, gave him strict instructions to track Fred down and report back. Once they knew where he was they could send—who? who would she send to bring this miscreant to justice?—Aggie was the best marksman and head and shoulders more sensible than anyone else who was left standing. She’d send Aggie to bring Fred to heel and return the medical supplies to their rightful owners.
Evelyn’s voice was light and airy, almost indistinguishable from the wind in the trees. “They were stolen goods to start with. Funny how you’ve made them yours, simply because you needed them.”
Sean wasn’t a 100 yards down the track when the roar of a motorcycle cut through the late summer air. Hedwig was back, a rifle slung over her shoulder, and a means of transport that no van could outrun.
Betsy took Hedwig’s bags from the back of the motorcycle. The girl had a gun. Jim had said that she was angry. Why not put that to use?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I would never have hurt you. You know that, don’t you?” Alice looked like herself just as soon as she hung up the phone. The brittle cast of her mouth; the steely looks she’d given him; her grip around his raw wound; they were all in the past.
Bill didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. She was only being nice because she wanted him to make her feel better. That wasn’t his job anymore. Not after what she’d said. She’d threatened him with harm and, worse yet, said she was going to do the same to their children.
“You’ve lived a wonderful life…” She let it trail off, but he knew what she was getting at.
“You mean I’ve lived a soft life. Unlike yours.”
“I don’t mean it personally, Bill. You’ve never been to war. Never seen your country torn apart. You’re lucky. It’s not a bad thing. It just means you don’t get it.”
“I get it.” Bill undid his seat belt. “You’ve been to war so everyone should go to war.”
“No.”
“You were brutalized, so everyone should suffer.”
“I never said that and I certainly don’t mean it.”
“You’ve already made them suffer enough.”
The inside of the car froze.
Bill was on fire, but even he could feel the icy rush of her wrath. Could he say it? The thing he’d never said? Could he call her on what she’d done? Explain why he would never let that happen again?
“We are at war.” She spoke slowly; as if the words were costing her a real effort. “I don’t expect you to agree or understand. This is how it has always been. We’re at war and some will step up while others step back.”
“They’re our children. We protect them. It’s our job. No parent willingly sends their child into danger. That’s madness.”
Alice turned her face away from him.
“I know you were betrayed. I get it. To you, people aren’t intrinsically good. You feel the need to fight all the time.” He reached for her, but she pulled her arm away and kept both hands wrapped around her chest. “But we raised them differently. We raised them to believe in the world, to trust, to take chances. They’re good kids. Let’s not throw that all away.”
“So who goes?” Her eyes were flat again. She was readying herself for a fight. “Do we send other people’s children? Is that what you’re saying?”
Bill slumped in his chair. “How about we send no children?”
“There’s a nuclear reactor spewing poison into the atmosphere. There’s a compound no one understands which causes death to most, but not all. This means there’s a tiny subset of us who can make a damn difference. The fate of New York—perhaps the world—is on the line. Do you honestly believe I could walk away from this?”
“No.” Bill knew. He’d always known. She wouldn’t walk away from that kind of challenge. Especially if she believed she’d been singled out; marked by not being marked. “I know you can’t walk away, but that doesn’t mean our children have to walk towards…”
“They’ll have a choice.” She cut him off as she started the car. “I’d never make them do anything against their will.”
“Oh, God, can you hear yourself?” His seatbelt alarm starting dinging at him, ordering him to fasten his belt again. “Paul has no will when it comes to anything you want.”
Alice didn’t answer.
“Am I wrong? Do you think your son would deny you anything?”
“He’s a good boy.”
“And wherever Paul goes, Petra follows.”
Silence from the other side of the car.
“Midge is too young, thank God.” He’d skipped over Aggie. If he went there he wasn’t sure he could keep it all in. He didn’t want to use the cruelest example. He would if he had to, but he didn’t want to.
“Midge is too young. You’re right. But if you think I’d prevent my children from doing what’s right, you’re sorely mistaken.”
The road ahead was jammed with cars. Alice drove onto the sidewalk. No warning. No slowing down. Just over the curb and onto the uneven paving and grass. She had to know it was killing his arm. It was another way of bullying him into submission. He wasn’t going to take it. He opened the glove compartment and found his tramadol but kept searching. There was going to be an upper of some kind in there. He could control his pain and stay awake. He had to. For the kids. He found the Adderall. The written instructions were for one pill, twice a day. He took two.
“What are you doing? Something stupid?”
“The same as you. I’m doing what needs to be done. You’re not listening to me but they will and I’m going to be awake so they have a fighting chance.”
Alice wove on and off lawns, around cars, through front yards. Was she deliberately taking the toughest route available to her?
By the time they reached the edge of town, the Adderall had kicked in. Bill had never taken so much as a NoDoze in college, so he wasn’t prepared for the jitters. Still, it was better than sleeping through the end of his marriage.
Wow.
Did he mean that?
Was this the end of Bill and Alice Everlee?
It couldn’t be.
He couldn’t let that happen.
He’d squared
himself away with the fact that he might be on his last legs, but he didn’t want them to go out on a sour note.
The silence dragged on through the beige, bland, boring streets of suburbia. How apt.
Bill knew he could do better. Must do better. Must try to heal this horrible breach.
How?
By doing the difficult thing: swallowing his pride and coming at this from another angle.
She was damaged, he knew that. She was hard in places where he’d rather she was soft, but only because of what she’d been through. Dr. Moore would have told him to be compassionate, particularly when Alice was having a hard time connecting with her more vulnerable side. He was emotionally far more stable than she’d ever be. He needed to be the bigger man. An hour of silence was enough. She would have calmed down by now. They could tackle this together—as they’d tackled everything in the past—and make it through.
“Sorry I was so quick to criticize,” he said.
Alice kept her eyes on the road. She was determined not to yield. That was okay. He’d faced this side of her before.
“I love you and I get where you’re coming from. You want to do what’s right.”
She nodded. At least she was listening. He could make his case.
“I want to do what’s right, too, of course.”
A tear slid down Alice’s cheek.
“You feel responsible.”
He waited. He wanted her to know that he knew that she was at war with herself. That was at the core of all her battles: the battle with herself; the belief that she was responsible for what had happened to her all those years ago in the Guatemalan jungle.
Alice cried in silence.
There was another secret they’d never discussed.
If he genuinely believed he was going to die, shouldn’t he tell her that he’d killed Mateo Hernandez? He turned it over in his mind. He could still see that evil bastard’s face as he raised his glass and told Bill that we each deserve what we get; what he’d meant was Alice deserved what had happened to her. How satisfying it was to wipe him off the face of the Earth.
“War changes you,” she said.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You’ve never had to fight for your life.”
It was now or never. This was when he told her that he’d been to Guatemala, seen the depravity of the man who’d assaulted her, and ended him.
“It’s not in my nature. I can’t walk away.”
“Neither could I,” said Bill. It was a dizzying feeling, to get this close to telling her the whole story.
“Paul’s like me. He needs to do what’s right. He has something to prove to the world.”
Bill took a deep breath.
“But you’re right. He would do anything I asked him to do. I won’t put pressure on him. He needs to decide for himself.”
That took the wind out of Bill’s sails. He hadn’t expected her to listen, let alone change her tune.
“Will you tell him the score? That MELT doesn’t attack everyone equally and that he’s one of the lucky ones?”
Holy moly that was rich. She was asking him to do her dirty work.
“Because we’re in this together. As a race of people. Not just Americans or Guatemalans or any one nation of people. This is going global.”
Bill’s brain spun in all directions. The ADHD drugs weren’t helping. He was awake, sure, but firing on 15 extra cylinders.
“Christine said they were going to use the ocean cleanup apparatus to push plastics towards Manhattan. That’s not viable. The machine is nothing more than a series of long, plastic tubes, driven by simple motors, with a net draped into the water. The idea was excellent when the goal was to trap plastics and get them out of the ocean. But for our purposes? For trapping micro-plastics and nanoplastics? It’s pointless. To say nothing of the fact that MELT will eat it in situ.”
She’d moved on. How did she do that? One minute they were talking about the fate of their children, the next she was discussing the cleanup operation. It was as if they hadn’t just had the fight of their lives.
“It might work for a short time but, even then, MELT will travel right through the mesh net. This is why I told Fran to get Professor Baxter into her own car. She needs quiet so she can think. We should be treating this as a chemical spill that requires a chemical response. We need to neutralize MELT. She’ll come up with something. She always does.”
Bill was stunned into silence. He wanted to talk about the kids and why he couldn’t send them into danger, but she’d calmed herself. Should he stir that all up again? Or should he wait until they found the kids and take it from there?
“I’m sorry I didn’t consult you about offering them the cabin.”
He was impressed. Alice didn’t often apologize after a fight. It made her feel weak and vulnerable. Even with him. She was far more likely to move on to the next thing than revisit what had been said. She wasn’t a re-hasher like him.
He wanted to meet her halfway. She’d admitted she was wrong, he could do the same. He searched for a place where he could yield ground. “If you’re right. If the kids have bugged out and taken most of what wasn’t wrapped in plastic with them, then you’ve only offered them a hut in the wilderness.”
“It’s more than that.” Alice dried her face. The tears had stopped. It never failed to amaze him that she could turn on a dime like that. He’d discussed it privately with their shrink and he knew it was a coping mechanism. She did it because she had to. When the feelings ran too deep or the memories were too dark, she’d get practical and busy. That’s what she was doing now. Best thing to do was engage with her and keep her on track so when it came time they’d be perfectly positioned to talk to the kids as if they were their kids and not cannon fodder.
“Fran said our cabin is close to the action.”
“Right.”
“If they need to go inside this ‘zone,’ to investigate what MELT is doing—whether it has slowed or stopped or, God forbid, sped up—they can.”
“I can look after the kids if you need to go back to your team.” He wanted her to say yes. A few hours earlier he’d been willing her to choose the family, but now he was back to the old version of himself and wanted her at a safe distance from the children.
“No. That won’t be necessary. I’ll stay with you. This week showed me what I want. It’s you.”
How many contradictions did she hold? She wanted to be with them, but she’d send them to the front lines.
Bill had a deeply unpleasant thought. What Midge would call “an icky.” Did Alice mean what she was saying? It was a horrible thing, not to trust your wife. Could she be doing what he was doing? Could she be playing him? Saying what she thought he wanted to hear? Biding her time so she could send the kids into danger when the time came? Only one way to find out. He was going to quietly, carefully, expertly open that can of worms and see where it led them. “If they can’t use planes or drones or dump trucks or backhoes, how are they going to transport the material they need to seal off Indian Point?” He was playing to her weakness, talking about her work. She was passionate about saving the world. It was like catnip for her. Would she go for it or would she sniff him out?
“Good question.” She didn’t seem to suspect anything was amiss. “The other question, of course, is what can they use to house the plant? It won’t be like the sarcophagus at Chernobyl.”
“No?”
“Most building materials have plastic in them, now.”
“What will they use?”
“They’ll have to make something from scratch. I’ll ask Fran next time we talk.” She was cheerful, her speech easy. If she suspected anything it didn’t show.
“I’m thinking about all the cars Jim has in his garage.”
“Because?”
“They’re vintage. I bet half of them don’t have plastic components.”
“But he’s refurbished them.”
“Yep. So?”
“New paint me
ans there’s plastic all over the cars. They will have been sprayed with a polyurethane enamel.”
“He’d need to sand them down?”
“Sand them down. Strip the interior. Take out any components that had plastic washers or covers or liners. It’s everywhere. People don’t think about it. It’s become part of how we live.”
He’d heard all of this before, one way or another. They’d talked about the ubiquitousness of plastic and plastic derivatives many times. But keeping Alice talking so he could find out where her mind had gone with regard to the children was his top priority. “Do you think there are cars and trucks—maybe even planes—in museums that they could repurpose?”
