Tia

When I was younger, I found an old history book in my father’s library filled with photographs of WWII. It wasn’t the facts of the war that hit me in my gut, though, horrendous as they were - it was the glossy photographs of women waiting for their soldiers to come home. In their polka dot dresses and ruby red lips, hair pinned in place and eyes bright, they would run to the arms of their lovers, kisses caught on camera and later memorized by me.

I’d trace my fingers over their faces, kitten heels rising off the pavement as a man lifted his bride, kissing her as if his life depended on it.

My heart beat hard as I pored over the pictures. The intimacy, the devotion, caught me by surprise. I saw something in those photos I had never, ever seen in real life - love.

Love is what made the pages of a history book.

I’d just begun to understand the enormity of the population crisis, and it hit me hard when I finally grasped that the love people found a century ago was long gone. Women and men no longer went to movie theaters in town for a date - cinemas no longer existed. How could they in a world where women were not allowed out alone? Where women were no longer safe.

As I shower and dress, preparing myself for the ship’s arrival, I berate myself once again, for acting so uncharacteristically idiotic when I first arrived in Alaska. Beyond lying on the intake, I ran away from the compound after being warned how unsafe it was.

Now I can look back at those early weeks and remember how scared I was. How trapped I felt. How desperate I had been for a life that was bigger, freer than the one I had in Seattle, the one I’d have with Lawson.

I lost all reason.

Because of him and the life that was forced upon me, I’ve been running ever since. But now, my feet are tired. I’m exhausted by the lies. The secrets are twisting into something I don’t understand.

Yes, I stopped physically running away, but I haven’t stopped running from the truth of who I am. I’m ready to come clean.

I blow dry my hair, twisting it into a low bun at the nape of my neck. I wish I could wear a dress and heels for when I go to greet my soldier - because I will greet him. I am choosing to believe Emerson will get off that ship today. And when he does, I will kiss his lips and lift my feet off the ground and let him spin me in the air.

It’s snowing out… it’s always snowing out, and a parka and boots will have to do. Still, I glide on red lipstick, hardly recognizing myself in such a bold color, but feeling nostalgic for a time in history that is long gone.

But as I walk downstairs, my heart skips a beat and I know that I was wrong about everything.

I find my husbands huddled around the front door. Fallon has just walked in. Thank God, he is here in one piece.

Before coming here, I’d thought the love that made the history books didn’t exist anymore.

But it does.

At the foot of the stairs, there are five good, true men waiting for me, looking at me with eyes full of devotion.

Eyes filled with love.

My eyes glistened at the underserved beauty of it all. Salinger’s mother created the Lottery to give her daughter a chance at a legacy, and that mother’s heart means I have a future right now.

Today.

With these men of Alaska.

I hate that Salinger and his family are at odds; that his sister died. The same way I hate what Fallon has lost. What Giles has buried. What Huxley hides and what Banks denies.

And what Emerson might never have.

But right now, we do have this. One another.

And that’s enough. It’s everything.

“Tia,” Fallon says, reaching for my hand. “Are you all right?” Even as he asks it, I know he sees the weight I carry. The weight we all have on our shoulders.

“We need to go get Em,” I manage, my voice cracking, unable to say anymore.

And I don’t need to. We all understand. We are a family. A broken, messy, beautiful family. A family we chose when we didn’t have to.

A family I will fight for with all that I am.

We get into the van, Fallon drives cautiously, and snow falls as hard as my heart beats heavily in my chest. I sit on a bench seat, Sal and Giles each holding one of my hands. Hux is in the passenger seat and he looks back at me, giving me a tender smile. Banks sits behind me. As always, I can feel his tension radiating off him.

And then we are at the pier. A ship is pulling into port, so close I can taste the salt water on my tongue.

And I scream, “Stop the van. Here.”

“I have to park it, Tia,” Fallon says. But I shake my head, scrambling over Salinger and unlocking the sliding door. I push it open, the frosty air hitting my face, but I don’t care. Big flakes fall from the sky, but nothing is blurring my vision at this moment.

Emerson.

Emerson.

Emerson.

It’s the only thought in my mind’s eye.

Salinger and Huxley jump out of the van, calling after me, but I don’t slow down. I know they are close enough to keep me safe, but right now, I only have eyes for the ship that has come to a stop. The ship carrying the survivors of an unexplained attack.

A bullhorn blasts as the ship comes to a stop and I push past the crowd, needing to stand at the edge of the pier, needing to see my husband.

This isn’t the end of a war. It seems that one has just started. But another one, a more urgent one, has been growing ever since that vaccination was administered all those years ago. A vaccination that took a full generation to understand. It was meant to cure people of the deadly Influenza-X that swept the globe.

It did what it was supposed to do. No one died of that virus.

Instead, it mutated our DNA and women began to die in droves.

Babies were no longer carried to term.

And later, much later, movie theaters closed, and people no longer went on dates. And we didn’t have the luxury of falling in love.

Yet, here I am.

Standing on a pier with bright red lips and despite all odds, I am waiting for the soldier I love to return from war.

We have lost so much, but we haven’t lost everything.

And as men begin to disembark from the boat, my eyes blaze with fervor and my heart pounds with hope and I need to see Em’s face. I need to hold his hand. I’ll never let go again.

Ten, then twenty, men exit the boat and I’m scared. Because I can’t lose Em. Not now. Not like this. And I know there are no guarantees in this world. Millions of babies will never take their first breath, and I know mothers will die in childbirth clinging to dreams that will never, ever come true.

And it’s greedy to want it all. To ask for the love of a husband that is deep and true. Desiring to hear the stark cry of your baby when it enters the world. It seems gluttonous to think I’d hold a child to my breast and cradle it as it suckles.

All of us alive.

These are dreams I pushed away for as long as I can remember because they seemed far-fetched and impossible.

My heart speeds up. My breath catches in my throat. And my knees go weak under me. Because Emerson is walking toward me. Living. Breathing. In the flesh. And his smile is as big as the ocean and his eyes as blue as the sky and his love for me pushing away the crowd, filling up my heart. He wraps his arms around me, his lips finding mine. He is home. My feet lift off the wooden planked pier and I don’t need a photograph to remember this moment. It is mine and it’s his and we are a family.

And right now, I know that nothing is impossible.

Mountains may need to move in order to make those dreams a reality, but oceans parted to bring my husband back where he belonged.

Anything is possible.

And then.

Like a crashing wave, hope is swept away.

My heart grinds to a halt and I forget to breathe. My clear vision blurs for the first time all day.

“Oh God, no,” I whisper, my arms still wrapped around Emerson’s neck.

Lawson is here.