54
THAIS
I woke unexpectedly in the night, alone in the bed, so I left the bedroom in search of Atticus. He was nowhere inside. I gazed out the front window first, but only saw Mr. Graham sitting on the porch in his rocking chair.
Atticus was not on the back porch, either.
I called out to him from the top step, peered through the black trees, but there was no sign of him, and so I headed straight for the pond.
He was sitting on the bank, his form silhouetted against the dark.
I sat down beside him on the grass, drew my legs up like his, our knees touching. For a long time, it seemed he never blinked. Shards of light danced on the surface of the pond; the gentle lapping of water against the shore was soothing and lyrical, but I sensed Atticus probably took no comfort from it. Something was bothering him. I wanted to talk to him, to touch his shoulder, but instead, I continued to gaze at the glittering water with him, instead.
After a while, Atticus spoke in a composed voice, “My sisters and my mother were raped and murdered by men I thought I could trust.”
I gasped quietly.
“Two years after The Fall,” he began, “on a cold night in November—that was when my life changed forever; that was when I lost my faith in God. It wasn’t the chaos in the streets after The Fever hit, or the collapse of society, or even when my brother died—it was the day that God killed my family.”
My hand fell away from my heart.
He paused and then skipped forward. “We survived through the worst part of it. For a long time, I thought I was the one saving them. But when we met up with a group of men, I realized—too late—that I wasn’t saving them at all. I led them straight to their deaths.” He lowered his head. “I had a bad feeling about those men from the start. I had a bad feeling and I didn’t listen to it.”
I glanced over; I saw the stiffening of his jaw, the outline of his hardened expression, one that contained so much guilt I could feel it, too.
“We were running out of ammo,” he went on, “and food and everything else. Mom worried mostly about Josie and Tara: they were scared, hungry, thirsty, but mostly scared. For a long time, we slept in abandoned houses and buildings, just like you and I have; sometimes in cars. For a week, we slept underneath a bridge because we’d walked so far down the highway and realized there wasn’t anything—no abandoned hotels or restaurants or gas stations—for miles and miles. Even that exit bridge we slept under led to nothing. We had been traveling for so long, and so far, and we had no idea where we were going, where we could go. I just knew that I had to get them somewhere safe, that we couldn’t walk the streets forever, and that we…” He hesitated, and it was enough to make me look over at him again. “…That we couldn’t survive by ourselves, and that I needed to get my family somewhere where there were many other people—strength in numbers.”
Feeling intense guilt of my own now, I looked at the ground. All this time Atticus had been telling me we needed to move on, that we couldn’t stay on the farm, or in the cabin, that we needed to get to Shreveport. But I, like a wide-eyed child, naïve and juvenile, had continued to persist in my desire to stay, fueled by delusions of safety. In this moment, I felt exceptionally foolish, so damned guilty, knowing in my heart all along that Atticus had been right.
Slowly, I looked back out at the pond wreathed by black trees. And I listened with a heavy heart.
“It was in Jackson, Ohio, we met up with a small group of eight men. Like I said, I…I didn’t trust them from the start. It wasn’t anything they did or said in particular—they were friendly and helpful—I just had a bad feeling. But my mother and my sisters saw the men…differently.”
He took a deep breath before he could go on.
“They—my mother mostly—were glad to see these men; they had become her new hope. The men wanted to take us with them, to help me protect my family. They fed us from their backpacks and gave us fresh water and all of us sat around a fire that night, on the street underneath the bridge in case it rained, and they told us about their families. We shared our tragic stories about those we’d lost, the things we’d seen; they were even respectful enough of my baby sisters to wait until they’d fallen asleep before talking about anything that might’ve given Josie and Tara nightmares. And not once did I see any of them look at my mother or my sisters in a way I didn’t like. I watched them, I waited for the slightest interest: a glance or a covert little smile, but not one of them showed it.” He lowered his head.
Finally, Atticus looked over, long and hard at me, wanting to seize my gaze, needing to see my eyes. I turned my head slowly, feeling the pull of his stare, and gave him what he needed as much as it pained me to.
“The first night, after weeks of refusing to leave my family’s side, the first night I decided to trust those men with my mother’s and sisters’ lives, they raped and murdered them while I was out on a supply run.”
I looked away, felt the tears rushing to the edges of my eyes. Absently, I reached up and wiped a few away with my fingertips. No…no…
Atticus, suddenly quiet, I got the feeling he did not see me anymore, though he was staring right at me, unblinking.
“Did you find them when you returned?” I asked in a soft, sad voice. I already knew that he had.
“Yes,” he answered absently, choking back the emotion; he swallowed. “Twelve and fourteen years old—raped, stabbed, and left to die on the floor of the house we’d been sharing with the men.” He looked away, gritted his teeth, balled his hands into fists.
“And your mother?”
Without looking at me, he answered, “She was still alive when I got there…”
ATTICUS
My mother used what strength she had left to raise her bloodied hand when I entered the kitchen. I stood motionless underneath the arched entrance; the blood of my sisters had soaked into the long sleeves of my shirt, and for a long time I could only stand there, staring across the room at my mother bleeding to death on the floor.
Her hand fell, her red fingers curled.
“Son…Please…”
I walked slowly over to my mother, forcing every step, forcing myself to face and accept the truth: there was nothing I could do for her; there was too much blood; there were no doctors to save her life. Nine stab wounds; the dark red spots had stained through the ripped fabric of her blouse; her gray sweat pants had been pulled to her knees. I looked only at her face. I had my mother’s eyes. And the golden brown of her hair. And her high, chiseled cheekbones. But not her strength—I could never be as strong as my mother.
“Atticus…” She tried to lift her head. “I’m not afraid…I know that…I…Son, I’m not afraid to die.”
But I don’t want you to die…
I knelt on the floor beside her, took her hand into mine and cradled it. Blood soaked into the jean fabric on my knees; anguish flooded the fabric of my soul.
My mother smiled—smiled!—at me, wanting to ease my pain—my pain!
I released her hand quickly, setting it back onto the floor, and sniffled back the tears that threatened to reduce me to a blubbering little boy. I wanted to pull her pants back over her hips to cover her nakedness, but I couldn’t will myself to touch her.
“Son,” I heard her say and I lifted my eyes to hers. “I…need you…to do something…for me.” She tried to catch her breath but her chest rattled beneath the buttons of her blouse and she panted. She coughed once, and blood trickled from one corner of her mouth.
I was a little boy again…huddled in the corner of my room, my little boy skin welted from my father’s leather belt…tears blinding me, snot clogging my nostrils…crying for my mother.
I tried to look away from her, but I couldn’t this time; there was something in her eyes that terrified me, made me instantly want to back away from her into the corner behind me. I didn’t know what it was, but my heart knew. My heart knew what she would ask of me, but my mind didn’t want to believe it. I refused to accept it.
“I’m in…a lot of pain, son,” she said, coughed again. “I need you to…help me”—(I pushed myself into a stand at once)—“Atticus…please…shoot me”—(I shook my head intensely; my eyes were round, blazing)—“Give me peace…let me…find your brother and sisters…in Heaven.”
The wall stopped me, but even still I thought somehow, I could keep backing up. Without knowing how I’d gotten there, I sat on the floor with my back pressed against the wall. The corner to my left beckoned me in my peripheral vision, and I wanted to crawl into it and cry for my mother.
“You can’t ask me to do this,” I finally spoke. “How can you ask me to do this?!” I cried; three tears slipped down my face; I wiped them away promptly, trading heartache for resentment.
Still, my mother found the strength to smile.
Her eyes fluttered for a moment, her long lashes swept her bloodied face; her breathing settled evenly. Her long hair, soaked in blood, lay around her head in sticky waves. Slowly her eyelids broke apart and she looked at her son again.
“Don’t let them take my life, too,” she managed to say without having to breathe between words. “You are my son, and I’d rather you take my life than to lay here and die slowly from wounds they inflicted on me—don’t give them that right, Atticus; don’t let them have everything.” Her strength abandoned her again, and her breathing became labored.
I looked at the corner, my gaze fixed on the thin strip of shadow running vertically from ceiling to floor where one wall met the other, and I saw that little boy sitting there, curled in on himself with his bony arms and little hands covering his head; his legs were red and inflamed; he could feel the skin had been broken on the back of his thighs. I saw my mother lean over and take him into her arms. I saw the little boy sobbing into her neck; his arms and legs wrapped around her. I saw my father, the tallest man I’d ever seen, with thick, curly black hair and fierce dark eyes. ‘Touch my son again and I’ll kill you myself!’ And then I saw my father’s colossal hand soar toward them like a wrecking ball, striking my mother across the face with a thunderous blow. And then I saw myself tumbling to the floor, my mother breaking my fall. But still, my mother was defiant and strong.
With the little boy gathered in her arms, mother and son pressed into that corner, she glared up at my father boldly, unafraid. ‘You’re weak—weak. And you’ll always be weak, a coward, a bastard.’
The little boy feared his mother’s words would only provoke his father more. But his father left the room, slamming the door behind him, rattling the house. My mother stroked her son’s hair, kissed his head, held him close. ‘I would do anything for you, Atticus. He won’t hurt you anymore—we leave this place tomorrow morning after he leaves for work. I would do anything for you…”
“Please, Son…”
When I looked back at my mother lying on the floor, I could barely see her through my blinding tears.
Heaving myself away from the wall, I drew my gun from my pants and stormed over to her, my hands and legs shaking, my heart breaking into a million unidentifiable pieces, the thread of my humanity unraveling.
Standing over my mother, I pointed the gun at her head.
Softly, she shut her eyes.
A shot rang out.
And that little boy who had always lived inside of Atticus Hunt, grew up in a shattering instant and had forever lost his innocence.
THAIS & (ATTICUS)
The moment Atticus stopped speaking and looked me in the eyes, I crumpled to my knees in-between his legs. My chest shuddered around a ravaged heart. I wanted to take him into my arms, but he was not ready for that. There was more.
I sniffled back a flood of tears; I regretted, more than anything, ever asking him to end my life for me; I regretted more than anything not telling him I was a virgin and letting him take my innocence. Now I understood. I understood everything. How could I have done that? How could I have put that burden on him? Reopened such painful wounds?
“Oh, Atticus…What did you do then?” I said, poignantly. “What did you do, love?”
“I went into the bedroom where my sisters were,” he said, surprisingly calm, “and I carried them, one at a time into the kitchen and laid them near my mother—not too close though because I was…”—he paused—“…I didn’t want Tara and Josie to see her like that. So, when I laid them down, I arranged their heads so they were facing away from her.”
My chest shuddered with emotion; I thought I might vomit.
“And then I covered them all with sheets.”
(I doubted my strength the more I told Thais; I could feel it slipping away, but I went on despite it.)
“And then I went after the men.” He stopped, lowered his gaze.
“One of the men—Casey—had gone on that supply run with me,” he said. “He was waiting outside the house. I told him I needed to be alone with my family, and he respected that. Casey…he might’ve been a decent man,” he said, his words laced with regret for a past he could not change.
When I realized what he was about to admit, I touched him, because to resist any longer was impossible. I raised a hand in front of his face, my fingers curled loosely, and I brushed them across the lines of his forehead.
“Tell me,” I whispered. “It’s okay.”
Atticus shut his eyes.
“I shot Casey where he stood in the backyard; just put my gun to his forehead and I shot him dead. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t look back. I didn’t think of him as I walked away. I killed a man who, as far I knew, had never hurt anyone. I took a man’s life based on guilt by association and my ‘bad feeling’. How could he be innocent? I asked myself as I raised the gun on him. If I didn’t kill him, he would’ve committed the same crimes. I believed it in my heart.” He paused. “But I judged him. I played judge, jury and executioner—I played God—and I killed that man in cold blood. I lost my mother, my sisters, and myself all in the same night.”
He collapsed his fingers around my small wrist, lowered my hand away from him.
(I didn’t want her forgiveness and understanding. I didn’t deserve it.)
“Atticus,” I whispered, “you said you believed it in your heart that he was just like the rest of them—”
“No,” he interrupted; shook his head with condemnation. “Don’t do that, Thais”—he pointed his index finger upward—“Don’t try to plead my case for me; don’t forgive me or tell me that what I did was acceptable because it wasn’t, and in your heart, you know it wasn’t.”
He dropped his hand back down.
“I had no proof he was guilty—a gut feeling is not justifiable proof for cold-blooded murder. What I did was wrong and unforgivable—what I did was wrong. That man wasn’t Private Masters or Mark Porter—with Casey I had no proof. It was wrong. It always will be. It can’t be undone. And I never want to talk about it again, until it’s my turn to die and I’m standing in front of my own judge, jury, and executioner and must face the consequences.”
I felt the semi-dampness of the grass against my bottom as I sat in front of him, closer in case he needed me.
“I tracked the others down in Blacksburg,” Atticus went on. “Found their camp about fifteen miles out, and I waited until they were asleep in their tents before I made my move on them in the night—slit every one of their throats, one by one, all eighteen of them. Rafe found me the next morning. I was sitting outside the tents, covered in the blood of those men, and of my mother and sisters—I still had the knife in my hand…”
ATTICUS
“What have we got here?” Rafe said, looming tall over me, blotting out the early morning sun.
“Looks like a fuckin’ lunatic,” said one man with laughter.
I heard the men shuffling around inside the tents, the clanking of items being tossed, the rearranging of boots on vinyl, the zippers on the dead men’s backpacks sliding open.
“A goddamn crazy person,” said another man. “This was a slaughter!” He sounded delighted.
I never raised my head. I didn’t care that there were more than thirty men standing around me, gawking at me like amused spectators in a freak show circus. And I didn’t fear death—I welcomed it.
Rafe, who wore military boots and camouflaged pants that were the only part of him I could see, crouched in front of me. Then I saw a gun dangling between Rafe’s legs from a big, rough hand. Still, I didn’t raise my eyes, and there was no fear in my heart. I hoped the giant man would kill me—I couldn’t do it myself.
“No,” Rafe said to the men, “a crazy man didn’t do this—a vengeful one did. And I’ll fucking bet every last one of them deserved it. I’ll fucking bet this man felt the lash of God before he killed these men, that motherfucking lash that comes out of nowhere, striking a man across his back for being innocent—a goddamn martyr. Well, you know what I say?” He leaned in closer, and still, I didn’t stir. “I say fuck God and his lash and his slaughtering of innocent people.”
I felt the heat of Rafe’s hand on my shoulder; Rafe added with a mock smile in his voice: “Who did they kill? Your girlfriend? Your wife? Your sister?”
Before Rafe could say “Your mother?” he found himself flat on his back looking up at the sky, an enraged lunatic standing over him.
“No! Leave him the fuck alone!” Rafe ordered the men who’d grabbed my arms from behind and pummeled me with their fists. “Let him go!” He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth where I had punched him.
I hit the ground after the men released me; I braced myself on my hands and knees. I spit blood onto the dirt.
I heard laughter in Rafe’s voice, and then saw his hand pushed into my view, reaching out to me. I didn’t accept it, but Rafe left it there anyway.
The laughter faded from Rafe’s voice and he said grimly, “I know the look of a man whose family was murdered, I know it all too well.” He pushed his hand into my view closer, insisting I take it. “This is what the world has become, my friend, and we can either let it have us, let it make us weak, let it kill us—or we can take back what is ours, and tell the Man Upstairs that He’s no longer welcome in a world He refused to protect.”
“There is no God.” My voice, and the sheer malice in my words, stole the smiles from the other men. Rafe’s smile broadened in his behemoth face. He knew a monster-in-the-making sat before.
I stood, on my own, and without Rafe’s help.
“I stayed with them in Lexington City until the day I left with you.”
I lowered my head.
“Whenever I thought of my mother after that, I resented her; I hated her for asking me to do what I did. I joined up with bastards like Rafe and William Wolf and Private Masters and Marion, and I became a part of them—I even blamed my mother for that, as if having to put her down was the final straw, the last horrific event that would change me.”
THAIS & (ATTICUS)
I shook my head; I wanted to tell Atticus he was wrong, that he was nothing like those men, but he would not let me speak.
“I didn’t resent my mother in my heart—I loved her,” he admitted, and looked away. “The truth was I only resented myself for not being there, for not being able to protect them. And I—.” He stopped abruptly.
I took both of his hands into mine; he looked into my eyes; his mouth trembled on one side.
“I hated myself for not being able to go with her. I was going to end it in that moment. As I sat against that wall, considering my mother’s plea, I told myself that after I shot her, I’d shoot myself too. There wasn’t anything left for me—my whole family was dead, and I didn’t deserve to live.”
His strong fingers pressed into the palms of my hands. Why is he consoling me?
“After I shot her I put the gun to my temple. But I couldn’t pull the trigger. I couldn’t pull the trigger…”
I took his right hand into both of mine and placed his palm over my heart.
“There is a reason you didn’t die that day,” I said with compassion, devotion, “and it had nothing to do with cowardice. You deserved to live, and every day after that, because you had a purpose—and yes, you still had a family.” I pressed his hand firmer against my heart. “I am your family, Atticus, and you are mine, and if you believe in fate, you’d see we were meant to meet, that everything that has happened to bring us together, was meant to be.”
“And what if I don’t believe in fate?” His voice was careful, reasoning. “What if I believe that if two people were meant to meet, it shouldn’t take the deaths of their family to make that happen?”
I placed my right hand over his heart then.
“Maybe finding each other is not why our families died,” I said. “Maybe we would’ve met anyway; we would still be sitting here together right now, with our families asleep in the cabin—maybe their deaths were meant to make us who we are, and who we have yet to become.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But I don’t believe in fate—I’d believe in God before I believed in fate, and that’s saying a lot.”
I smiled.
“I don’t believe in fate, either,” I admitted.
His brows crinkled slightly in his forehead and he looked to me for an explanation.
“I am a firm believer in the course of one’s life being controlled only by his or her actions and deeds,” I said. “I guess sometimes using fate as an explanation for a terrible sequence of events is easier for someone to accept, who doesn’t believe in God.”
(I wanted to smile back at her, and I nearly did.)
“Look at me, Atticus.” My voice was a whisper, filled with hope and honesty.
(And I looked at her; a breeze blew a few strands of hair across her loving face.)
“It took bravery to give your mother what she needed in her final moments,” I said, squeezing his hands. “It took a man who still has hope in the world, to go on living, to have risked everything you had to save me, and to continue to risk your life for mine.” I squeezed more firmly in emphasis. “No matter what you believe, or don’t believe, the fact that we’re sitting here together, right now under the stars, alive, and still good in here”—I released one of his hands for just a moment, pressing my fist against my heart—“despite everything we’ve suffered together and apart, is proof enough for me that we were meant to find one another, and maybe even to change the world together—who knows!”
I laughed shortly, and then my smile evened out again.
“We’ve let the deaths of our families haunt us in different ways: you’ve been walking around with an unbearable burden on your back; I’ve been walking around without one, because unlike you, I was too afraid to carry mine. I left my guilt and my pain in the house I lived in with my mother before she died. I refused to take it with me. I left the picture on the wall. I am selfish.”
Atticus hooked his hands around my wrists and turned my palms up, resting the back of his hands on my thighs. He lifted the right wrist and kissed it. He lifted the left wrist and kissed it.
“Now that,” he said sharply, “is one word I would never associate with you—you’re the opposite of selfish. Tell me how you do it,” he went on. “Tell me how you were able to leave your burdens behind—I want to be as strong as you, Thais Fenwick.” He kissed both of my wrists again.
“Acceptance,” I answered. “Acceptance…and forgiveness. I accepted a long time ago that my mother was gone and that there was nothing I could do to bring her back. And I forgave her for choosing to leave. And…well, it’s hard to admit, but I don’t think of her much. Sometimes I go days, weeks, without thinking of her once, and I admit that I purposely try to forget about her sometimes, because it makes the process easier. But she’s always there in the back of my mind—she’s always there if I need her, just like Sosie, and my father. We choose our pain, Atticus. We choose to let it in, and we choose how long it stays there.”
Atticus inhaled a deep, contemplative breath.
“Of course,” I continued, “things are different now, and I know that if something were ever to happen to you, accepting and forgiving and forgetting, will never be possible. The pain would live in me forever.” I looked deeply into his eyes. “I already carry that burden on my back, Atticus—just thinking about it—and it’s the heaviest thing I’ve ever carried.”
He pulled me onto his lap and wrapped his arms around me from behind.
ATTICUS
We sat together in silence for a long time, listening to the water lapping the shore, the usual singing crickets and croaking frogs, and in that time, I decided, at last, to lighten the heavy burden of my load by taking Thais’ advice. Like Thais, I could only carry so much weight before being crushed by it all. And the thought of something ever happening to her was all the burden I could carry anymore, either.
“I’m ready to leave the cabin,” she announced. “You were right—we shouldn’t stay here; we shouldn’t have stayed here as long as we have. We should leave tomorrow.”
I kissed the back of her head and my arms tightened around her.
“What about Jeffrey and Esra?” I asked. “We can ask them if they’d like to go with us, but I have a feeling Esra is pretty set in his ways.” I propped my chin on the top of her head. “And even as much as Jeffrey likes you, I don’t see him leaving his grandfather behind.”
“I know, you’re right,” she agreed. “But with or without them, we have to go.”
“What about Jeffrey’s canoe? I’ll feel a little like shit not finishing it for him like I promised.”
“He’ll understand.”
Thais reached up and pulled away more strands of hair as the breeze blew them across her mouth; simple gestures like that made me feel a little dizzy with love for her.
“I think if you show him how to do the rest, he’ll be proud to finish it himself.”
“Yeah, he probably would.”
Thais smiled at me. “You’re going to miss him, aren’t you?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’m going to miss him.”
She kissed me on the mouth. I lifted her into my arms and carried her back inside the cabin and made love to her.