Текст книги "Sunrise"

Автор книги: Mike Mullin

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

Chapter 56

I desperately wanted Mom to come to the wedding, but I was equally terrified to ask her. What if she said no? So I put off the trip to Warren. And put it off some more. I realized I was being terribly unfair to Rebecca—she loved Darla, and if she didn’t get to come to the wedding, she would probably skin me and make a winter coat out of my hide.

Three nights before the big day, I was on guard in one of the sniper nests. We had four of them built by then, and we staffed all of them 24/7. Our security procedures would make attacking Speranta with anything less than a tank suicidal. I routinely gave myself the worst shifts, the ones that started at 2:00 A.M. or 4:00 A.M., both because I figured that was when we were most likely to be attacked, and because I had noticed that people seemed more enthusiastic about heinous tasks when I was also willing to do them.

I was scanning the horizon with a pair of binoculars, looking at darkness, darkness, and more darkness, when a knock sounded on the hatch under me. I just about jumped out of my skin.

Uncle Paul’s muffled voice said, “You’re lying on the hatch.”

“Actually I’m having a coronary on the hatch,” I said as I scooted aside and pulled it open.

“Sorry. Can’t wait until we get a telephone system installed.” Uncle Paul flopped on the floor, panting. “That’s a ridiculously long climb.”

“You’re working on telephones?” I let the hatch clang shut and went back to scanning the horizon while we talked.

“It’s on the list. After the wedding. Should be possible. We’ve got power, and we can scavenge the components.” “What about cell phones? Or some way to communicate with scouts? Ben wants me to set up a patrol schedule.” “Tougher. I don’t know much about cellular switching systems. Maybe radios would be easier. I’ll work on it,” Uncle Paul said. “Anyway, I didn’t come up here to talk about telephones.” He paused for a long while. Just as I was getting ready to break the silence, he said, “Does my sister-in-law or Rebecca know you’re getting married on Sunday?”

I cringed. I had been avoiding the topic, even with myself. I certainly didn’t want to talk about it with Uncle Paul. “I don’t know.”

“Well, has anyone gone to Warren to tell them?”

“Not that I know of.”

“They’re going to be pretty upset if they don’t get an invitation to your wedding.”

“Mom’ll be upset either way. Sometimes I think the only thing that would make her happy is an invitation to Darla’s funeral.”

“That’s not fair, and you know it.”

“Neither is the way she acts around Darla!”

“Maybe not. You know, the relationship with parents is never easy. It’s so fraught with emotion that neither the parents nor their children can think about it rationally.”

“I don’t really think of myself as a child anymore.” “You’re not. But becoming an adult doesn’t make it easier. Harder, really.”

I rolled to a new sniper port to continue my scan of the horizon. “I don’t get where I went wrong with Mom, why it’s all screwed up so badly.”

“Assigning blame isn’t going to help. If you can, think about it like a political problem. You’re getting damn good at those.”

I snorted, my eyes still glued to the horizon. “You liked the way I outmaneuvered Evans, huh?”

“He still doesn’t know what hit him. If the relationship with your mother were purely political, what would you do?”

“I’d take the offensive.” And that was when I knew exactly what to do.

Chapter 57

In the morning I went to Warren. I left Uncle Paul in charge of Speranta and Darla working on a wind turbine—I thought my mother might be more open to the news if she wasn’t staring at Darla as she heard it. Darla asked who was going with me, and I said I had talked to Uncle Paul, which was technically true, if a little deceptive. I had decided to go alone—on skis I would be fast and stealthy.

I breezed into Warren a little before lunch. There were still no sentries, no wall, not even so much as a barbed-wire fence. I skied right up to the back door of the house where Mom and Rebecca were living.

When I peeked in the window, I was greeted by a scream from Mom—she and Rebecca were sitting at a table right under the window, sewing by the light it let in. There was a huge pile of cloth scraps and old clothing on the table, which they were laboriously patching by hand.

I waved through the glass, and Mom sat back down heavily. Rebecca smiled and waved back before popping up to open the door. I knelt and started slowly untying the straps that held my boots to the skis—we had far more pairs of downhill skis than cross-country skis, so someone working under Darla’s direction had converted a bunch of downhill skis so they could be attached to the toes of modified hiking boots. They worked fine, but they were a real pain to put on and take off.

Before I had even the first ski detached, Rebecca was outside. “Oh. My. God. That hook is wicked, bro.” She reached out as if to touch it, and I moved my hook away. “Careful. The edge is razor sharp.”

She drew back her hand. “I’d heard about it from Dr. McCarthy, but whoa.”

“It wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had on a Thursday night,” I said.

“I always pictured you more as a Peter Pan type than Captain Hook.”

I wondered how long the Captain Hook comments would follow me. The rest of my life, probably. “Yeah, me too.”

“I kept meaning to come visit,” she said, “but it got crazy busy.”

“Same here.” I gave her the short version of recent events while I wrestled off the skis. Then we were inside. Mom stood in front of the door, hands wrapped around herself as if she were cold. Well, she probably was—it was freezing in there. I had gotten used to the longhouse, which was usually above fifty. Mom’s house was cold enough that I could see my breath in the air.

“Alex, your hand . . .” Mom said, still clutching herself. Go on the offensive, I reminded myself. “It’s fine, Mom.” I held my arms wide for a hug. “Good to see you.” She opened her own arms, wrapping herself around me, and for a moment it felt like everything was all right. “How’ve you been?” she asked. “I mean, other than . . .” “The hook’s not bad once you get used to it,” I said. “And everything else is going well. We’ve got enough food, finally. . . . you should come visit. Bring your mending. We’ve got an electric sewing machine hooked up you can use. Or we can get you new clothes pretty easily.” The Wallers had more clothing than both our settlements could use in a lifetime.

“You’ve got electricity?”

I kicked myself mentally. We could handle a few more refugees, but not the floods that might show up if word got around about how well-off we were. But I couldn’t rewind the conversation. “We only use it for sewing when the wind is blowing and the batteries are fully charged. Heating the greenhouses is the top priority. But yeah, nobody sews by hand in Speranta anymore.”

“Well, I’d love to see that and to use your sewing machine, but I’ve got new duties here as First Lady. And I’ll be principal of the new school when it opens next month. Maybe I can come see your little settlement in a few months when the school’s running well.”

First Lady? What did she mean by that? And little settlement? And how was it that Warren could mow down kids in the road a few months ago and now be opening a school? Focus, Alex, that’s not what you’re here for. “Could you make a short trip this weekend? It’s not far, only a couple hours on skis.”

“I really don’t have the time, honey.”

“I know! We could pick you up on a Bikezilla. You could sit in it and just ride there and back—make it a one-day trip.” It would be a hard day for whoever was pedaling the Bikezilla, but whatever.

Mom sat back down and picked up the jeans she was patching. “What’s so important about this weekend anyway?” I hesitated. There was no easy way to say it. “Darla and I are getting married on Sunday.”

“Absolutely not!” Mom snapped.

Chapter 58

“You could consider it, at least!” I said.

“No. You are not marrying that girl.” Mom held the needle as if she was going to stab it into the jeans. “I wasn’t asking for permission!”

“Good, because I forbid it.”

“Mom!” Rebecca said.

“Don’t ‘Mom’ me. That girl is bad for him.” “After all the time I spent trying to convince you to invite Alex, to let me go tell him?” Rebecca said. “You’re just going to shoot him down when he reaches out to you?”

Huh? “Tell me what?”

“Alex, I swear to God,” Rebecca said, “I’ve had bowel movements more observant than you are.”

I wasn’t sure whether to scream or cry—I felt like doing both. “What am I supposed to be observing?”

Mom was stitching away furiously, ignoring us both. “Her hands,” Rebecca said. “You’re supposed to notice her hands.”

I looked. They were the same hands Mom had always had—long fingers with angles a little too sharp to be elegant. “Her rings,” I whispered. They had been gold– yellow. Now they were platinum. And the diamond on her engagement ring was, like, twenty times the size of the one Dad had given her. “Why’s she got new rings?”

“She remarried, dumbass.” Rebecca whirled toward Mom. “I can’t believe your hypocrisy. You’re going to forbid Alex from marrying Darla, you’re not going to his wedding, and you didn’t even invite him to your own?”

“It was only a small thing,” Mom said.

“Yeah,” Rebecca replied, “like fifty of the mayor’s cronies and me.”

“She married Mayor Petty,” I said flatly, still not believing it, but at the same time understanding that it was true.

Mom kept her attention on her sewing. I spun, opened the door, and rushed outside, slamming the door with a satisfying crash.

I knelt to tie my boots back into my skis but couldn’t do it; my hand was shaking too badly. This was a stupid idea. Reaching out to Mom. One thing I knew: Speranta was going to have a law allowing children to divorce their parents. I didn’t know if she could forbid me to marry—in the old world, maybe, although I was eighteen now. In this new world, not a chance.

“Alex, wait.”

I was so freaked out that I hadn’t even noticed my sister following me outside. “Why? Nothing’s going to change her mind.”

“I know. But I’m coming with you. I want to see my big brother get married. It would have been such a delicious scandal in the old world, huh? Eighteen-year-old high school senior marries college-age girl?” Rebecca smiled sadly.

“Hurry then, okay?”

Rebecca went back inside. By the time I had calmed down enough to start strapping on my skis, I started hearing shouting from inside the house. Then crashing noises. I wondered if I should go back inside to make sure Rebecca was okay. But my presence might make it even worse.

Finally Rebecca emerged, looking flushed, wearing a heavy coat, backpack, and ski boots. She was carrying a really nice set of Saloman XADV cross-country skis in her arms. She snapped into them in less than a tenth of the time it’d taken me to get into my jury-rigged setup. “We’d better get out of here before Mom calls the sheriff—or our new stepfather.”

“You think she will?” I asked.

Rebecca shrugged.

We left Warren in silence. I took a different route back to the homestead, weaving in and out of old ski and snowmobile tracks as much as possible to confuse our trail. We had traversed almost half the distance back to Speranta before either of us spoke again.

“You have extra clothing at the new farm?” Rebecca asked. We were single file with me in the lead, so she had to yell.

“Yeah. Plenty.” Clothing was easy to come by now. I tried not to think too much about its provenance, though– some of it came from the closets of the dead. “Why?”

“I don’t think Mom wants me to come back.”

I stopped and stepped out of the ski track, letting her draw alongside me. “I’m sorry.” I drew her into an awkward, one-armed, sideways hug. “How did everything get so messed up?”

She sighed heavily, leaning into me. “I thought I could convince her to, I don’t know, accept you and Darla or something. But it just got worse. It was always Darla this and Darla that—if the bacon stuck to the bottom of the pan, I swear, Mom blamed Darla for it. I tried ignoring her, I tried arguing, but nothing seemed to work.”

“I don’t get it. Why? Mom seemed to hate Darla from the moment they met.”

“Think about how they first met, in the middle of the same gun battle where Dad got shot—”

“But Darla had nothing to do with Dad’s death. If anyone was to blame, it was me! I talked Dad into helping rescue Darla. I did that.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Alex.”

“I know that. It was the goddamn Dirty White Boys’ fault. That isn’t my point. So why the hell does she blame Darla?”

“Because she can’t blame you.”

“Why not? I’d rather have her angry at me than Darla!” “It’d be too much like blaming herself.”

I fell silent, thinking about it. When had my little sister gotten so mature, so perceptive? Or maybe she had always been that way, but I was finally open enough to notice it? But it still didn’t completely make sense. “She’s obviously over Dad. She married that politiciansicle, after all.” “Politiciansicle?” Rebecca asked.

“Petty. He’s cold, has a stick up his butt, and you’ve got to lick it to get him to do anything.”

Rebecca laughed. “You always did have a way with words.”

I caught sight of two figures in the distance moving toward us. “Someone’s coming,” I whispered. I unslung the rifle from my back and dropped flat in the snow. Rebecca threw herself prone alongside me.

Chapter 59

I flicked off the safety and chambered a round, then pushed my head up just enough to see. There were definitely only two of them, headed directly toward us on skis, but I couldn’t make out their faces at this distance. I held the rifle ready and watched them approach.

When they got within shouting distance, one of them spoke up, “Alex, if you shoot me, so help me, the wedding’s off,” Darla yelled.

I pointed the rifle away from her, safetied it, and ejected the round from the chamber. When they got closer, I could see that Darla was skiing alongside Zik.

“What were you thinking, taking off on your own?” Darla said as she reached us.

“I’m fast and stealthy on my own,” I replied.

“And if you’d broken a leg or something? Who was going to go get help? Or drag your sorry ass home?”

“Oh.” I hadn’t really thought about that possible scenario. She sort of had a point.

“Sorry.”

“Never mind. Let’s get home.” Darla gave Rebecca a hug, and then all four of us pointed our skis toward Speranta.

“Guess your mom’s not coming?” Darla said after a bit.

“No,” I said.

“What’s the deal? I mean, I get that she blames me for your dad’s death for some reason, but why’s she taking it out on you?”

“That’s the main thing, but there’s more to it,” Rebecca said. “You know she was feuding with Uncle Paul, right?”

“No. When? I never heard them argue,” Darla said.

“It was stupid,” Rebecca said. “It all started about three and a half years ago, before the eruption. Max dared me to jump off the barn into a haystack. I did it, like an idiot, and broke my arm. Mom blamed Max, since he was older and it was his farm, even though it wasn’t like he pushed me or anything. And then Mom and Uncle Paul started arguing over who would take care of the medical copays. Uncle Paul sent her a check, but she wouldn’t cash it. Said it had to come from Max, or he wouldn’t learn. Maybe she was right, but Uncle Paul felt like she was meddling. So the point is, she was never comfortable on the farm anyway.”

“But that’s where she was when Yellowstone blew, right?” Darla said.

“Yeah. That’s why Mom decided to go to Warren that day. To try to patch things up with Uncle Paul.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

“You’re a little bit oblivious sometimes, Bro,” Rebecca said. “Anyway, then Mom cracked up before the battle– she would never talk about that, but I think she was embarrassed afterward. Maybe even afraid Uncle Paul would blame her for Aunt Caroline’s death.”

“He didn’t,” I said.

“Either way, caring for Mayor Petty became a way to avoid her brother-in-law. And then I guess Mom and Petty fell in love or something.”

I sighed. My whole body felt heavy, like God had cranked the gravity up by twenty percent. I felt like yelling at him, Could you turn the thermostat up too, while you’re at it? I didn’t want to deal with it, didn’t want to think about my mother anymore.

My sister skied more slowly, falling a little behind. I had to strain to make out her words. “I thought I could help, that I could be there for her, change her mind. But nothing ever really changes, does it? And now . . . and now she doesn’t even want me around anymore.”

I heard a choking sound—half animal snarl, half sob—and twisted to look back. Rebecca was crumpled in the snow behind me, sobbing. I performed a laborious step-turn, wishing I had skis like Rebecca’s that I could snap in and out of easily. Darla and Zik skied on a bit before noticing we had dropped back. I pulled up beside Rebecca and fell into the snow beside her, wrapping my one good arm around her, supporting us both on my hook, thrust deep into the snow beside us.

“No matter what happens, I’ll always be your family” I sat in the uncaring snow, holding my sister and sharing her tears.

Chapter 60

I woke before dawn on the morning of the wedding, dressed quietly, stepped outside, and looked to the east. Light was just beginning to emerge from the horizon, a flame-orange streak that looked more like a prairie fire than a sunrise. On the spur of the moment, I decided to climb the icy roof of the long-house to get a better look. Getting onto the roof was easy—it stretched all the way to the ground. Still, the first time I tried to climb it, I slid back. I went inside, got a claw hammer to carry in my natural hand, and using that and my hook as improvised ice axes, I managed to scramble to the top.

I straddled the peak of the roof, getting cold while staring at the horizon. The sun still wasn’t visible; it existed only as a bright smudge under a yellow-gray sky. But sometimes at dawn and dusk the sky came alight with riotous color—shows so surreal, it seemed as though we had been transported in the night to some alien planet.

That morning the sunrise was exceptional. Yellows, oranges, and reds slashed across the sky in vibrant swathes. Here and there, violets and greens emerged as if to reassure me that there was still some blue sky behind the yellow-gray murk, biding its time patiently until the thinning ash and sulfur dioxide allowed it to reemerge. The whole eastern sky flared with brilliant color, wrapping around and above me in a psychedelic embrace from the god of impressionist painters.

I waited and watched, reveling in the sunrise, until the sky faded to a uniform yellow-gray again. My legs had frozen to the roof. I pried them free and slid down to prepare for the big day.

We held the wedding in the original longhouse. We had cleared all the bedrolls and detritus of our day-to-day lives out of the middle and festooned the longhouse in plastic greenery and flowers. I stood at the front alongside the makeshift altar, trying not to shift nervously from foot to foot. Max and Ben stood beside me, Rebecca and Anna on the other side of the altar.

Darla stepped through the longhouse door on Uncle Paul’s arm. She was a vision in her long white dress, its bodice made of some material that sparkled, playing flirtatiously with the electric lights overhead. With every step she took, the sparkles in her bodice picked up more of the light from the candles burning alongside the altar, making their flecks yellow instead of white, warming her as she neared me at the front of the room.

Her shoulders were bare, showing off her powerfully muscled upper arms. She wore the homemade necklace I had given her three years ago, its pendant—a 15/16 nut– nestled at the curve of her breasts. Her exposed skin was red from the cold wind outside, and I suppressed an urge to run down the aisle and lay my jacket over her shoulders. Despite its shoulderless style, the dress sported sleeves so long that they nearly hid her hand and hook. I almost laughed out loud when her skirts shifted and I caught a glimpse of her feet—she was wearing her usual black leather combat boots under all that frippery. What did brides normally wear on their feet? Glass slippers? I wasn’t sure. Anyway, the combat boots were much more practical for waiting around in the snow outside while the rest of us filed in.

We had no organ or piano, of course, but we had scavenged a fiddle, and Elaine, one of the young women who had been shot outside of Warren, was a Suzuki-method violinist. She managed a pretty decent rendition of “Here Comes the Bride.”

Reverend Evans started saying something, but I couldn’t hear him. All the space between my ears was full—full of Darla. I had been in love with her almost since the first time I’d seen her: an overall-clad angel with a needle and thread to sew closed my wounds. But I had never felt that love as keenly as I did at that moment. I loved the small mole on her back under her left shoulder blade. I loved her earlobes and the way she giggled when I kissed them. I even loved her hook, with its ungainly wrench and screwdriver sockets.

“Ahem,” Reverend Evans was clearing his throat, “would you take the family candle, please?”

Darla was holding a lit candle and glaring at me. I could read that glare as clearly as a billboard—it said, “Now, dumbass!”

I smiled an apology at her and picked up the other lit candle. Five unlit candles were arrayed on a stand between us in front of the altar: four smaller candles in a square pattern and a large one in the middle. The candles were mismatched—purple, red, and white, their sizes irregular too. Candles were exceedingly difficult to come by now and worth a fortune in trade; burning a few inches off these would easily be the most expensive part of this ceremony “We light the memory candles to symbolize those who have passed on and cannot be here in body, but who are surely here in spirit, blessing this union.”

Darla tipped the candle she held to light one of the smaller candles. “For my father, Joseph Edmunds.” Her voice was clear and brave. She lit the next one. “For my mother, Gloria Ed—” A tear raced down her cheek, and she bit her lower lip.

I lit a candle. “For my father, Douglas Halprin.” I lit the fourth small candle. Did it make sense to light a candle for my mother? She wasn’t here, but she wasn’t dead either. Was I saying she was dead to me? She wasn’t, I decided—would never be so long as we were both physically alive. I would hold onto hope even if she couldn’t. “For my mother, Janice.” Did I call her Janice Halprin or Janice Petty? I hadn’t thought about it, so I just used her first name.

After a short pause, Reverend Evans stepped into the silence. “And now we light the unity candle to symbolize the joining of these two families.” Darla and I tipped our candles toward the large one, letting our flames mingle and light it. We put our candles in the candelabrum and stepped back to listen to the remainder of the service.

The rest passed in a blur. There were readings and prayers, and Reverend Evans preached a sermon of sorts—I barely heard it. My mind burned as brightly as the candles before us, full of wonder at the beautiful woman beside me, soon to be my wife.

Then I was repeating after Reverend Evans, taking the vow that would bind us forever. I remembered what Darla had said in the snowbank outside Stockton, when we thought we were dying: that we were already married, that we had taken a vow stronger than the one that bound most married couples.

In a way, she was right. So many people mouthed these words and then ignored their meaning, ignored the hard work and sacrifice the vow required. In that sense, we were already more married than many couples and had been for more than two and a half years.

But in another way, she was wrong. There was something wonderful about saying the words here, in front of our whole community. In front of God, maybe. I had never been much of a believer, but in that moment, it wasn’t difficult to feel that something holy was taking place, that we were being watched and blessed from above.

Max fumbled the ring, and it rolled around on the floor for a moment. I had visions of it falling through one of the cracks in the floorboards. We had built the long-house fast and loose—there were plenty of ring-size cracks in the floor. But Max stopped the ring by the simple expedient of stomping on it. He plucked it off the floor and handed it to me, his face burning redder than the candles.

“With this ring, I thee wed,” I said as I slipped it onto Darla’s finger. She slipped my ring onto my right hand—I would wear it there forever. Darla had offered to make me a ring holder for my hook, so I could wear it on the traditional side, but I had said no. I wanted the ring against my skin, where I could feel it, reminding me of this day and of this promise.

Then Reverend Evans spoke the words I had been waiting through the whole service to hear. “You may kiss the bride.”

I kissed Darla gently like the first time we’d kissed on an old couch in an abandoned house east of Worthington, Iowa, more than two and a half years ago. When our lips parted, Darla whispered, “Did I ever tell you that you’re a five-star kisser?”

“No,” I said. “There aren’t enough stars in the sky to describe how it feels to be kissed by you.”

Darla smiled and turned to the crowd, holding my hand aloft. “Let’s party!” she shouted.

Everyone quickly cleared out the middle of the long-house. We didn’t hold a procession—there was nowhere to proceed to anyway. I turned to snuff the candles; we might need them if our electricity failed.

The violinist was joined by a banjo player, and Max set up a scavenged drum kit. It was a strange trio, but the banjo player knew a bunch of square-dancing songs, so he led and Max and the violinist just followed along.

Flasks and bottles appeared as if by magic, people sharing their long-hoarded personal stock to celebrate. Nearly everyone offered me a drink, but I turned them all down. I didn’t love the taste of alcohol, and there was no way I wanted to be drunk on my wedding night. Darla drank until her cheeks were flushed, and her smile grew a little brighter than usual.

We did as many of the usual reception rituals as we could. Darla tossed a plastic bouquet over her head, and Alyssa snagged it out of the air. She carried it back to where the band was set up and leaned over to smooch Max. He was so surprised, he dropped his drumsticks.

I went over and pounded Max on the back by way of congratulating him. He stood up and leaned close, whispering, “Someone left a necklace under Alyssa’s pillow three nights ago. She thinks I did it.”

“You didn’t?” I said.

“No.”

“I wonder who’s giving her stuff? Whoever it is has been remarkably secretive—it’s been going on for what, a year now?”

“A year and a half,” Max said.

“You’d better tell her it’s not you, before she finds out some other way.”

“I guess you’re right.” Max shrugged, and I went to rejoin Darla.

We didn’t have a traditional cake, but someone had made a dense, fudgy concoction from supplies we’d gotten from the Wallers. Darla and I cut the ersatz cake and smeared it all over each other’s faces. I held her tightly and cleaned off her face with my tongue, while Rebecca looked on in disgust. I thought I was being eminently sensible, though—no sense letting all those calories go to waste, right?

Eventually the party wound down, and people started retiring to their bedrolls at the edges of the longhouse. I told the band to pack up so those who wished to could sleep. Darla and I stayed up a while longer, talking with the remaining revelers, some of whom were well and truly smashed. My feet ached and my head spun, more from exhaustion than the tiny bit of alcohol I had consumed.

“You want to go to bed?” I whispered to Darla.

“Thought you’d never ask,” she replied with a wicked grin.

Usually we all slept out in the middle of the longhouse floor. There was no privacy whatsoever. A room that can sleep ninety-eight people comfortably can’t really be cut up into ninety-eight bedrooms, and we didn’t have the time or manpower to build partition walls anyway. Greenhouses took priority. For tonight, though, someone had erected a temporary screen made of plywood panels around one corner of the room. I lifted Darla into my arms and carried her into our makeshift bedroom to the catcalls and cheers of the partiers.

Someone had strewn plastic roses all over our bedroll. I laid Darla down atop them, and she immediately started rolling, digging around and tossing the roses aside. I brushed the faux roses off my side of the bedroll, kicked my shoes off, and lay down beside her.

Darla attacked me—that’s the only way I can put it. She rolled on top of me and kissed me with a fire and passion and intensity that left me breathless and bruised. Her hand was everywhere, and she was in far too much of a hurry to bother undressing. Instead she shifted bits of clothing and undergarments, and things were going much too fast, but I wanted nothing more than to lie back and enjoy it, to let her do whatever she wanted with me.

But I couldn’t. I pushed her off me, rolling her onto her back beside me.

“What the hell?” she said, loud enough that I was afraid people on the other side of the screen would hear.

“We can’t,” I whispered. “I mean, I want to, and we can do anything you want to except that, but . . .”

“But what?” Darla said, still talking way too loudly for my comfort.

“You already know what,” I said. We had tried to buy condoms during our visit to the Wallers. There weren’t any to be had at any price. They had a small stock of Triphasil—a birth control pill—but it would have cost us a small fortune in kale. We had opted to buy more antivi-rals and antibiotics instead.

“I don’t care, Alex. I want children. Lots of them. You know that. There’s no reason not to start now.”

“There’s every reason not to start now!” Now I was the one talking too loudly. “You could easily—”

“That tired old argument? Animals have babies without veterinarians every day. Women had babies back when medical ‘science’ consisted of balancing the humors in the body with leeches. I won’t magically self-destruct just because I get preggers.”