by Lou Cadle
She had missed a few exchanges, but tuned back in when Curt said her name.
“Sorry. I was thinking about—” She cast about in her mind for a good lie. “Standing watches. Do you think things are safe enough we can quit standing watch, Arch? Or should we continue as before?”
“For now, I’d like to stick to a three-hour-per-day schedule. Or wait.” He counted people at the table. “Plus Dev is seven. So three hours and some minutes per day.”
Curt said, “Three hours and just under a half an hour.”
Pilar said, “Easier to give one person a four-hour shift, everyone else three.”
Sierra said, “Give the longer shift to me.”
“That wouldn’t be fair,” Kelly said. “We’ll rotate it, and we’ll rotate night shifts like before too. Arch will work it out.”
“You mean I’ll work it out and you’ll correct it,” he said.
Pilar shook his head and rolled his eyes at them.
Back to normal, Sierra thought. Everyone was back to normal. Everyone but her.
Chapter 22
In the next week, their world went back to a routine, but a calmer routine than since the first man had tried to steal food from Arch’s shop and had been shot. No one attacked, and Arch was working hard on a secret project, as he called it, to make sure attack would be less likely.
Several hens were sitting on eggs, the garden was bearing, and they’d planted new crops of green beans, peas, radishes, cabbages, beets, and carrots for late-fall harvest. A few weeks from now, they’d plant salad crops again, leaf lettuce and spinach. They’d relied on internet weather forecasts before to know when the first frost was coming to harvest the last of the delicate foods, but this fall, they’d have to do something different, rely on their best guess and hope an early frost didn’t catch them unaware.
Everything was normal in the neighborhood. Everything except Sierra. She was still having more bad moments than good. She did her work, but sometimes she wondered why she was bothering.
She’d been avoiding Dev, but one day, she had to take over from him for watch duty, and made herself deal with the unresolved issue between them. “I want to talk with you,” she said. “Wait, would you?”
“This can’t be good,” he said.
“It is good,” she said. “Good for you. Maybe bad for me, but that’s as it should be.”
“Look, I was hurt. And I had a headache. And I didn’t know what I was saying.”
“You did know. And I know you’ve got a crush on me.” It felt far better to call it a crush. And maybe it was kinder to him to use that word. “But I’m not the person for you, Dev. I’m really not.”
“I get it. You don’t like me.”
“Not true. I like you a lot. I trust you. I think you’re a really good man. Like how you’ve been with Rod this week? That’s just so sweet to see you teaching him things, like hammering and all that. You’re going to be a great husband and father one day.”
“But not with you.” He was looking at the ground.
“Oh, Dev. You deserve so much better than me.”
That made him look up. “Better than you? Who is smarter than you? Prettier than you?”
“Beauty is only skin deep. You’ve heard that one, haven’t you?”
“You’re beautiful deeper than that. And you’re strong. I want kids. You have that right. I want a strong mother for them. A fighter.”
A killer? She shook her head. “We’re going to be interacting in Payson and with the other place, with Wes’s people. And if that thing goes through where you go stay there for a week or two in the winter, there might be a wonderful girl down there for you. Anyone who has survived is going to be tough and smart. You just need to find someone kind and good too. And who likes you the way that you like her.”
“I don’t want anyone else.”
She wanted to cry. “I am a terrible person, Dev. I really am. If you can’t see that now, you will one day. And I’m not beautiful inside. I’m a mess. You don’t want it. I don’t even want it.”
His expression changed as he studied her face. “What is it? Did someone hurt you?”
She knew what he was thinking. “No. Not like that. I wasn’t raped or anything.”
“Did something else happen? Something before? Or something recently?”
She didn’t want him thinking about it. His next question was going to be about when such a thing might have happened. During the day they put up flyers? During the liberation of the jail? He’d get too close to a truth she wasn’t willing to share. “No! Nothing specific happened. I just don’t like myself very much right now.”
“I like you.”
“I know you do. I know your folks do, and Pilar, and Joan, and Curt all do. But that doesn’t change how I feel about myself.”
“You want to talk to me about it?”
She shook her head.
“Please forget what I said before. About liking you and wanting something with you. Just talk to me as a friend.”
He only made her feel worse by trying to be kind to her. “I can’t. It’s something I have to work out myself.”
“And when you work it out, you’ll like yourself again?”
“I hope so. But even then, Dev, nothing’s going to happen between us.”
“Is there somebody else?”
“What? No.” She couldn’t imagine that right now. Her sex drive was dead for now, her interest in romance maybe dead forever. “No, it’s not someone else. It’s not your fault either. You’ll be wonderful for the right woman.”
He just stared at her, as if he was trying to bore into her brain. Or maybe push a message in there. She knew the message, and she felt terrible that she didn’t want to hear it. She tried a joke. “I bet your father will be glad you’ll never be involved with me.”
“I don’t give a damn what my father thinks. And it might surprise you what he thinks of you. But if you don’t love me back, you don’t.”
“Not like that,” she said, and tears sprang to her eyes. “I’m so sorry, but I don’t.”
“Have a nice watch,” he said, and he stalked off.
Well, wasn’t she just a steaming pile of shit? She was like some natural disaster, doing damage all over the place. She’d done everything wrong but kick Jasper.
Later that night, sleepless in bed, she thought again, for the hundredth time, about turning herself in to whatever authorities Payson had now. September first would be the next trip to Payson, and she could go along and offer herself up to their justice system, whatever that might be.
There was some relief in that thought, that the secret would be out, and she’d be punished. But she was afraid. Her cowardice seemed as ugly as the truth.
She wasn’t thinking clearly—she knew that much. But even if she were, she didn’t believe she’d know what the right thing was to do.
Chapter 23
“Sierra.” Her father sounded angry.
She glanced up from her plate of eggs and salsa.
“What is wrong?”
“With the eggs?”
“No, not with the eggs! With you!”
“Nothing is wrong with me.”
“Then why are you playing with your food? Why are you eating so little? Why are you up and down all the damn night through?”
She looked at her plate. She had been absentmindedly stirring the scrambled eggs and salsa around and around. It was an unappetizing mess, but she bent her head and started shoveling it into her mouth, holding her breath so she wouldn’t taste it.
“Stop. Stop eating, and look at me.”
Swallowing the mouthful she had, she put her fork down and wiped her fingers on the napkin. They had been made by Lisette. “Do you ever wonder about Lisette?”
“That won’t work. We aren’t going to talk about Lisette, and we aren’t going to talk about your mother, or Emily or that dog or my ribs. We’re going to sit here and talk about you.”
She had a childish urge to run into
her bedroom and slam the door and lean against it. But she knew that wouldn’t work. This is where she lived—the only place she could live now. She couldn’t take the car and stay at a friend’s in Payson overnight to avoid her father and his questions, like she could have in May. She was stuck here.
“Sierra, I’m worried about you.” He had moderated his voice, but the undertone of anger was still there.
“I’m fine. Not sick. Not injured. Even the little ding on my leg is just a dry scab now.”
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about. You’re upset about something, and it shows. Joan noticed it. Kelly noticed it. I notice it every time we’re in the same room.”
“It’s nothing, really. Just something I need to work out myself.”
“But you aren’t,” he said. “I’ve left you alone for two weeks because I thought maybe you would, but you aren’t working it out. If anything, you’re getting worse.”
“I’m sorry,” was all she could think of to say.
“I’ve talked to you about my depression, right? Is that what this is? Are you thinking about k—” He had to stop for a moment to get control of his voice. “Killing yourself?”
“No, I’m not going to kill myself.” Though the last couple days, the thought had crossed her mind that if she were dead, she wouldn’t feel what she felt. But she hadn’t thought about how that death might come about.
“Promise me. Promise me you won’t, that if you get that urge, you’ll come and find me immediately.”
“Okay,” she said, wondering if a promise like that had ever made someone not kill herself who really wanted to. “I want to live.”
“Is it that we’re not fighting anyone? Do you miss the battles and the killing?”
“No!” She felt her stomach turn over, the salsa and eggs in there wanting to come back up. “No, not at all. I’m glad it’s done and hope it’s all behind us.”
For a long while—three minutes, at least—he looked at her, and she had no idea what was going on in his head. It was a bit creepy because his face was so serious.
Of course he had no idea what was going on in hers, did he? She couldn’t explain where the thought had come from. She didn’t think she had a spark of empathy left in her, but she realized that he might be as creeped out by her as she was by him right now. She had a sense he might do or say something he’d never done before. It scared her to imagine what.
“The night of the fighting. Something happened, didn’t it?”
She tensed.
“Sweetheart, did someone…hurt you?”
“No,” she said.
“Are you sure? If you were raped, you can—”
“I wasn’t!” she said. “No one said even a rude word to me. Not a look. They were all….” Her throat closed.
“All what?” Pilar said, when she didn’t answer.
She shook her head, not trusting herself to open her mouth and say a word like “respectful.”
He came out of his chair then and kneeled beside her. “Baby, please. Tell me.”
Tears poured out of her eyes and she opened her mouth to refuse, but all that came out was a sob.
He reached for her, and she let him, sliding off the chair and holding on to him and letting herself cry. She’d been holding it back so much, afraid he’d hear her if she cried at night, and now it was all coming out. There were a lot of tears built up back there. She cried, and he held her, and every time she tried to say something, all that came out were shuddering breaths.
It took a long time to stop, a long, long time before she got control of herself. By then, he was rocking her back and forth and crooning to her like she was an infant.
She sucked in a long breath, starved for oxygen. When she let it out, she felt a bunch of tension leave her. Only then did she realize she’d been physically tensed up for days and days. She took another deep breath, another. The tears were slowing down.
“I need a handkerchief,” she said. She hardly recognized her own voice, it was so raspy.
He reached back and grabbed a dish towel from the back of his chair. “Here,” he said, and he used it to wipe her face.
That made her cry again.
“Okay, you do it.” He handed the towel over.
She wiped her face. Her shirt was wet. “I have snot everywhere.” She looked at his shirt with bleary vision. “On you.”
“I’ve had worse on me. Are you ready to talk?”
She shook her head and looked down at the wadded-up dish towel. “You’ll hate me.”
“I will never, ever in a million years hate you. I’m your father, and I love you, and I’ll always love you.”
She looked up. His eyes were damp too, and she tried to memorize the look on his face while he still felt that way. Either she’d lose his love or his respect in the next few minutes, and it hurt to know it.
But the secret was like a cancer inside her, eating her up. She had to tell. Maybe had to tell everyone. And Pilar would be the kindest listener.
“I killed a man,” she said, and she looked away immediately so she couldn’t see his reaction.
He didn’t say anything, and she risked a look at him. He was frowning. Then he said, “I was worried this would happen. It’s gotten to you. You realize what you’ve been doing, and—”
“No!” she said. “Or yes, I guess that’s become a part of it by now, but no. I killed a man. Me. Killed him. Took his life.”
“Yes?” he said, but he was obviously confused.
She tried to get her thoughts straight. Though if she did, it’d be the first time since it had happened. “You’ve heard of friendly fire?”
“Of course. You mean you shot someone on our side?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “I swear it was an accident.”
“Of course it was. Who?”
“A man from Payson. He was a nice guy, and in the dark I thought he was one of them, and I shot him in the back. And killed him.” She started crying again. “And I feel like shit.”
“Of course you do, honey, of course. But it was an accident.” He took her chin and raised it so she’d look at him. “You didn’t mean to. Stuff happens in war.”
She shook her head. “No, not to anyone else.”
“You don’t know that.”
That stopped her. “You mean someone else who died that night might have been fired on by one of us?”
“Sure, or on the other side. Hell, Joan shot herself accidentally. It happens. I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel bad, but you’re not the first…first soldier to do it or feel bad over it.”
“He had been in jail for weeks. And you should have seen those jails. Disgusting, and they were packed in there like hens in a commercial farm, sitting in their own shit like them too, and yet he came out of that with kindness and decency and—” She started sobbing again. “I killed him.”
“Oh, my child,” he said, and he pulled her in and hugged her again, patting her back.
When she got her breath again, she told him everything she knew about Roy. That he was married, she thought. That he found the canned food and instead of keeping it for himself, he told her about it. And about the shooting itself, how he didn’t respond to the pass-signal and she’d assumed he was an enemy. “The worst thing,” she said, “the very worst thing of all, and I can’t get it out of my head, is that he said if he had a daughter one day, he’d want her to grow up like me.” She wanted to cry again at that, but she was out of tears.
“Of course he would. Anyone would. You’re an amazing young woman.”
She shook her head hard at those words. “I’m awful,” she managed to get out.
“No, just human,” he said.
She kept shaking her head. But eventually, the urge to cry stopped. She felt like she could spend every second the whole rest of her life crying in remorse and it’d still never start to make up for it, or show a fraction of how sorry she was it had happened. “That’s some kind of sick irony or something,” she said. �
��‘I’d be proud to have you as a daughter,’ and then not an hour later, I put two bullets in his back.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay!”
“And no one knows?”
“No. And that’s not okay either.”
“Now I know,” Pilar said.
“That’s a start. But I should tell everyone. Everyone here, and whoever is in charge of Payson. I’m willing to take my punishment, if that’s jail or execution.” She didn’t want to die, she didn’t, not now. But it would be the end of her guilt. “And most of all, I should tell his wife, and his kid, if he has one.”
“Sierra, honey, what good would that do?”
“Good? There’s nothing good that can come of this. But it’s the right thing, the honorable thing.”
“No, it’s not the right thing. What purpose would it serve if you told his widow?”
She cringed at that word.
“She might feel worse, thinking he’d died for no reason. Right now, she thinks he was a hero of the liberation of Payson. That might be a comfort. Even if it’d make you feel better to tell her, would it make her feel better?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“And what if the Payson people resented it? They’re really angry, I imagine, and a lot of who they’re angry at are dead or gone. They could take all that anger and turn it on you.”
“I’ve thought of that. Or not about turning it on me. I guess if they tore me into pieces in the Walmart parking lot, or lynched me, that’d be no better than I deserved. But I’m afraid they’ll punish you too. You, and Arch, and Kelly, and Curt, and Dev. None of you screwed up down there. It was me. Only me.”
“I don’t know so much about screwing up, but yes, the accident was at your hands.”
“Is there any way to keep them to only punishing me? To convince them to leave you all out of it?”
“Not that I can see,” he said. “The only way out I can see not to risk retaliation is to not tell them. Not tell anyone else.”
“Not even Kelly or Arch?”
“No, not even Kelly or Arch.”
“It seems wrong.”
“You kept it a secret from everyone for two weeks. I think you can keep it a secret from everyone but me for longer.”
