by Tom Abrahams
Chris was noticeably older than the last time he’d seen him. He was taller, his facial structure more mature. The baby fat that had filled his dimpled cheeks was gone.
Marie was more of a woman, the spitting image of her mother. There was a wisdom in her eyes he hadn’t seen before. She moved gracefully; the awkwardness of her early teenage years had disappeared.
Jackie was as beautiful as she’d been the day he’d met her, let alone the day he’d left for Star City, Russia, and his trip to the ISS, but there was an edge to her. She was hardened in some intangible way. She’d seen or experienced things that had altered her vision of the world, he was certain. There were things he assumed he didn’t want to know, but needed to know.
He’d noticed the burned pile of debris where homes once stood across from his, seen the boarded windows, and the bloodstain on the floor. He was afraid of what he’d find in the forbidden master suite. There was time to learn about all of it.
They were a family again. That was the comforting thing. They were, however, a different family than they’d been before, and there was no going back.
Clayton finished the last of the pasta, sipping the final noodle into his mouth like a straw. Chris laughed at him and he smiled.
“I wish the spaghetti had gone further,” said Jackie. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
“We apologize for the intrusion,” said Chandra. “We won’t be staying long.”
Jackie chuckled. “I was joking. Our house is your house; our food is your food. You brought my husband back to me.”
Chandra blushed and looked at his empty plate. “Thank you.”
“How much food do we have?” asked Clayton. “I mean, how long can we go with seven people here?”
Jackie shrugged. “A week.”
“What about JSC?” asked Clayton. “Could they help?”
“Been there, done that. It’s a long story,” said Jackie. “Probably not. They’d take us in, but not Nikki or Bert and Chandra. And their accommodations aren’t good for the long term. They have food and power, that’s about it.”
“There’s the ranch near Austin,” Marie said. “We could go there. I bet Nikki would like to see Rick. We know they’re self-sustaining from what Candace said.”
Clayton shook his head in confusion. “Who’s Candace?” he asked. “And Rick? Rick Walsh? Kenny’s dad?”
“Yes,” said Jackie. “He was camping with the boys and met Nikki when the power went out. They all made it back here. Nikki stayed with us when Rick took a group of people to a prepper’s ranch near Austin.”
“Candace’s ranch?”
“Her cousin’s.”
“Who’s Candace again?”
Jackie dabbed the corner of her mouth with a paper towel. “She lived in the other cul-de-sac. She came to stay with us when the power went out.”
Clayton scratched his beard and ran his hands through his hair. “Where exactly is this place?” he asked. “And we know they’ve got plenty of food?”
“We don’t know anything, really,” Nikki answered. “We were told it’s got a farm and well water and natural gas power. It’s in Coupland, east of Austin.”
“And you’re Rick’s latest—”
“Clayton Shepard!” Jackie gasped.
Nikki smirked. “I’m nobody’s anything.”
Clayton waved his hands in front of his face. “No, no, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yeah, you did,” said Nikki. “It’s fine.”
“Well,” said Clayton, “from the look of the neighborhood and the house, I’m not sure staying here is any more of a viable long-term option than JSC. As much as I want to stay here, I think we’re better off trying the ranch.”
“It’s a risk,” said Jackie.
“With all due respect,” said Bert, “everything’s a risk now. How far is Coupland?”
“Less than two hundred miles,” Clayton responded.
Bert shrugged. “We’ve got enough fuel to get us there. We could all pile into the JLTV out there, though not everyone would have a seatbelt.”
“What about checkpoints?” asked Nikki. “At NASA, they talked about the government shutting things down.”
“We’re in a military vehicle,” said Bert. “We’ve got military uniforms upstairs. We’ll be fine. Plus, we avoided most of the checkpoints on the way here. We can figure it out heading to Coupland.”
Jackie looked at Clayton. She eased closer to him and nudged him with her hip. “So it looks like you’re not done traveling,” she said. “You’re not home just yet.”
“Home is wherever you are,” said Clayton.
Marie rolled her eyes. “Give me a break. I missed you, Dad, but I didn’t miss your corniness.”
“I did,” said Jackie. “I missed it.”
“I missed a lot,” said Clayton. “And I want to hear about it all, good and bad. But let’s get to Coupland first.”
“We’ll leave in the morning,” said Bert. “We could be there by midday, nightfall at the latest.”
“After what we’ve done,” said Clayton. “That’s easy.”
***
Clayton stood in the driveway, the faint odor of smoke hanging in the cold air. He inhaled and tightened his grip around Jackie’s waist. She stood in front of him, her back pressed against him, and together they looked skyward. She held his wrists with her hands.
“I looked up at the sky every night,” she said. “I talked to you. I prayed for you. I cursed you. I searched for you.”
Clayton kissed the top of her head and inhaled her scent. He felt her lungs expand and contract with her breaths.
“No matter how far away I knew you were,” she said, “I always believed you’d come back to us. It didn’t make sense. I’m too smart to think you could navigate whatever it was you had to navigate to get here, but I believed.”
“Did you really?”
“I did,” she said. “I knew it was you in that truck today. I don’t know how, but I could see you in the truck behind the wheel. That’s why I ran to you.”
Clayton replayed the moment in his mind: her running to him, grabbing him, clinging to him.
She pulled his arms from around her waist and turned to face him. “I never stopped believing,” she said. “Never. I knew you wouldn’t leave us behind.”
Clayton looked into his wife’s eyes. She was a good woman, a strong woman. She should have been the astronaut. She was the hero. He couldn’t tell her there were moments when he thought about giving up. He couldn’t admit he’d been ready to fall to his death. He kept telling himself there was plenty of time for that. There’d be time once they reached the ranch. There’d be time days or weeks from now. Or there wouldn’t be time. In this nightmarish world, nothing was certain anymore. Everywhere was the middle of nowhere.
Still, they had each other now. He’d somehow bridged the gap between his family and a powerless, floating RV two hundred and forty-nine miles above the planet’s surface. He’d crash-landed, fought off wolves, buried friends, stolen a plane, escaped from an underground bunker, and somehow made it back to the woman who believed he would do all of it and come back to her alive.
And he had.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Endless thanks to Courtney, Sam, and Luke. Your love and support is empowering. A huge thank you to my editor, Felicia A. Sullivan, who worked on this during an incredibly busy time in her life. I’m grateful. Thanks also to both Pauline Nolet and Patricia Wilson for their proofreading expertise and to Stef McDaid fo
r making the books look out-of-this-world.
And to artist Hristo Kovatliev. You’re genius.
Thanks also to Steve Kremer for his insight and expertise. He is a modern day Renaissance man with boundless knowledge.
Thanks also to Mark Bowman for his help with the science of the Soyuz and to former NASA Astronaut and author of The Ordinary Spaceman, Clayton Anderson for his guidance and friendship.
Thanks to my parents, Sanders and Jeanne, my siblings, Penny and Steven, and my mother-in-law, Linda Eaker, for their support. Also, thanks to Jane Daroff, my aunt who has faithfully read all of my books. I think she might know the characters better than I do.
And thanks to the readers who keep enjoying the nonsense I concoct in my brain. I’m indebted.
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