24
THAIS & (ATTICUS)
From a sliding glass door, I watched the sky fade into the gray haze of twilight. I sat at the kitchen table eating a can of sardines with my fingers. Atticus refused to eat, said he wasn’t hungry, and even after trying to convince him he was, I ended up with the whole can to myself.
Guiltily I ate.
“Is it true?” Atticus asked, sitting on the counter. “What you told me back in Lexington City? That you lived in the forest, hunted and fished and farmed?”
I nodded with my mouth full. “Mmm-hmm”—I swallowed—“My father and my sister and me; we lived on our own for a long time.” I sucked at the hot sauce on the tips of my fingers.
“And what about your mother?”
My mood shifted in an instant. I went back to eating. Atticus sat across from me, his long legs covered in camouflaged pants, dangled over the counter.
“My mother died a long time ago,” I said, as if it were nothing.
(Sensing her discomfort, I abandoned the topic.)
“How long did you live like that?” he asked. “In the forest?”
“I was eleven when The Sickness hit, so it was about seven years.”
“So, you’re eighteen now,” he said.
I nodded, sucked on a finger. “Almost nineteen, but I don’t know exactly. Maybe I am nineteen. How old are you?”
“Twenty-four,” I said, and added, “And you were never attacked until now?”
I shook my head and swallowed down the last bite. “We had some close calls,” I said, recalling each one. “But in the beginning, we had more ammunition. And more people. The people in our town were very close; we stuck together, protected each other and what little we had.” I wiped my hands on my dress. “Some died of old age. Some died of disease. Some left and never came back. Some…well they couldn’t go on and died in their own way.” I paused, thinking of my mother and my sister, and then I looked at Atticus’ hands again. “And some died from infection.”
He glanced down at his cuts. They were healing; a thick layer of blood had dried in the wounds, along with dirt that still had yet to be washed out. He had argued before that we didn’t have enough water to be using on cuts he “knew” wouldn’t get infected. I thought he was just being stubborn.
“I don’t know who attacked our town,” I said, “or who killed my father, but…” I couldn’t finish. I felt vengeful in my heart, but my conscience got the best of me. Like my father, I believed there was good in everyone, and it was easy for me to forgive. But I could never forgive those who killed my father, and I couldn’t deny, every day when I woke up, the darkness growing in my heart.
“That man who brought us to the city,” I went on, “he told us it must’ve been the cracks who attacked our town.”
ATTICUS
I looked at my hands again, but I wasn’t seeing the cuts anymore. With regret in my heart I curled my fingers, stretched the battered skin over the top of my knuckles just to feel the pain.
I couldn’t say anything at first. I didn’t want to. But I knew I had to.
“It wasn’t Marion’s party that attacked your home, Thais,” I said at last. “But it was a party from Lexington City.” I tightened my left hand into a fist, so hard that the flesh broke, reopening the wound over my knuckle. Blood trickled over the top of my middle finger. “I heard the men talking about it in the bar one night.”
Thais stared across the room seemingly at nothing, her gaze fixed on the window over the kitchen sink. I did the same; the pinkish-purple sky in its transition from day to night blurred in my vision.
She broke her attention from the window. “Nothing to do about it now,” she said, pretending to be indifferent, I knew—I had mastered that game.
I hopped down from the counter and went over to her, bothered by her lack of emotion—if it were me, there might be a new hole in the wall, or I would’ve already stormed out of the house to find and kill the ones who destroyed my life. But Thais and I were like night and day, darkness and light, hard and soft; I embodied violence and retribution, while Thais, she seemed to personify…hope.
“It’s okay to be angry,” I said, standing tall over her small form. “If you need to take it out on me, I welcome you to.” (I want you to!) I crouched in front of her, eye-level, forcing her to look at me. “If you want to hit me, or claw my eyes out, or”—I reached behind me, balanced on the toes of my boots, and pulled the gun from the back of my pants—“if you want to shoot me, I won’t stop you.”
She looked down at the gun, and I urged her to take it, but she pushed my hand away.
“I could never kill a person in cold blood,” she said. “Least of all you.”
“Why not me?” Why would she say such a thing?
“Because you’re not the man you believe you are.”
Taken aback, I rose into a stand.
“I’m every bit the man I believe I am,” I said, and then slid the gun back behind me. “I could’ve left Lexington City a long time ago…” I turned my back to her and went slowly over the yellow-tile floor toward the counter again. “Whether or not you can kill me, you can’t think that way about everyone, Thais. You’re not in the forest anymore; you don’t have a town full of people with weapons to protect you. You’re out in the open now, and like animals in hunting season before the world went to shit, you’re fair game, and every season is hunting season.”
“I know,” she said simply.
“Then don’t ever say you could never kill a person,” I scolded.
Thais sighed.
“You don’t understand,” she began. She stood from the chair. “I would defend myself, Atticus. If I had to, if I was forced to, I would kill. But I hope it never comes to that.”
I didn’t believe her. I didn’t think she really believed herself.
She lowered her eyes. “It just doesn’t seem right to take someone else’s life if I can’t even take my own.”
I shot her with a reproving look.
“So, you’re back to that again,” I accused. “Don’t make all this be for nothing.” I pointed at the floor, gritted my teeth. “You’re too strong for that; you deserve better than whatever waits for you on the Other Side—there’s nothing over there but darkness. Take your own life, the cowardly way out, and that’s what you’ll get—darkness.”
I didn’t realize how deeply my words cut her until it was too late to take them back. Thais’ shoulders stiffened; her pale, freckled face, tempered by anguish.
“So that’s what you believe?” she said critically. “You think my mother and my sister were cowards, and they’re just out there somewhere, floating around in nothingness? No absolution? No peace?”
I sighed. Why the fuck did I say ‘cowards’?
“I didn’t mean that—look, I don’t know what happens after we die, but…” Something occurred suddenly. I stepped up closer to Thais. “Your mother committed suicide, too?” I didn’t know an easier way of asking.
THAIS
Reluctantly, I nodded, and a darkness swept through me as I remembered that day.
Atticus placed his index finger underneath my chin and raised my face to his. His eyes were so intense, full of compassion and heartache and understanding. I knew he wanted me to tell him about my mother, but I couldn’t. I had admitted that she had taken her life, and that was enough. I could never tell Atticus why she did it: she had been attacked by men in the woods; I’d overheard her telling my father. I could never tell Atticus the things my mother told me and Sosie before she died, about letting no man take from us what wasn’t theirs. I could never tell Atticus these things, because then he might’ve known. He might’ve figured out that I had never been with a man before, and it frightened me to think he might turn out to be like all the rest, and want from me what any man would want from a virgin.
I moved to stand beside Atticus near the kitchen window. We looked out together at the darkening horizon looming over the open field.
“Do you think they’re looking for us?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “They wouldn’t waste time or resources sending out a big party just to find two people, but they’ve sent someone—I have a feeling Marion probably volunteered.”
I sighed.
“I hope that other man, Edgar, was telling the truth. I really hope that, more than anything.” There was a nervous tenor in my voice; I glanced at Atticus at my side, his tall form a strange comfort next to me.
“Do you regret leaving?” I asked him.
“No. I regret many things, Thais Fenwick, but leaving that city isn’t one of them.”
I peered at him, surprised. “You remembered my last name.”
“I have a good memory,” he said. “Make sure the backpacks are ready; we need to leave soon.”
We watched the sky darken over the field.
Hours before the sun rose, Atticus, seemingly in a lot of pain from so much walking, stopped to rest before crossing another highway. A blue-black haze lingered in the expanse of sky, the moonlight making it easy to see everything for many miles in every direction. Out ahead, a barn engulfed by a sprawling backdrop of trees was to be our safe haven for the night.
We hurried across the highway and came to a barbwire fence separating the road from the land. Digging in the small backpack, Atticus retrieved a pair of wire cutters. I stood with the horse as Atticus cut the wire away so the horse could go through it. He pulled the wire back, bent it around a post. He grabbed my hand, took the horse’s reins in the other, and we went through the opening in the fence.
Atticus did a quick sweep of the barn.
“We’ll rest here for a few hours, then we’ll set out again.”
He tied the horse’s reins around a wooden beam inside the barn. The moonlight dimmed when he closed the tall wooden doors, the sound of rusted hinges creaked through the space. I looked around for the best place to lie down, but decided there wasn’t a best place: the floor was made entirely of dirt, and there wasn’t enough hay to gather into a soft bed; an old car had been parked near the far wall, but its doors and hood and even the seats had been stripped from it. Opposite the car, a pile of tires sat in a messy heap of rubber, perfect for all things creepy and crawly; and the upstairs loft had been stuffed from back to front with wooden pallets.
Atticus took the quilt from the horse’s back and tossed it over his shoulder. He pulled his jacket from the small backpack, and then went past me toward the back wall.
“You sleep here,” he said, after making a bed with both items on the ground.
“What about you?”
Atticus laid down on his back against the dirt next to me. He set the gun on the ground, crossed his arms over his chest, his booted feet at the ankles, and he looked up at the tall ceiling where shards of moonlight beamed in through uneven cracks.
“I’ll sleep here,” he said, and then raised his head. “Unless you want me to move farther away.” He started to do just that, but I stopped him as I lowered myself on the quilt, my bare knees pressed into the fabric.
“No,” I said, gesturing for him to lie back down. “Please stay close; I don’t like to be alone. Not out here. Like this.”
I hadn’t told him this in the days before because I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea, but I wanted him near because he made me feel safe. Every house and building we’d slept in, Atticus always chose a spot far away from me: on a chair on the opposite side of the room; on a mattress next to a door; downstairs on a sofa while I slept in a bed in an upstairs room—the lengths Atticus went to just to make me feel comfortable did not go unnoticed.
With pain-filled movements, Atticus laid back down against the dirt.
Deciding the quilt was big enough for me, I held the jacket out to him.
“You should use this,” I said, urging him to take it.
He shook his head and kept his arms crossed.
I chewed on the inside of my mouth thoughtfully, then set the jacket down between us and stood.
“What are you doing?”
“What you should’ve done days ago.”
I went toward the horse.
ATTICUS
I raised up, propped my weight on my elbows, forearms pressed against the ground beneath me, and I watched Thais dig inside the large backpack. She came back with our only bottle of water and sat down beside me.
“Hold them out,” she instructed maternally, pointing at my hands.
I shook my head with faint amusement. “I cleaned them yesterday in the stream. They’re fine. I’m fine.”
A scowl appeared on her face, and she just sat there, staring at me with narrowed eyes and a stiff upper lip. This, too, was amusing. I nearly smiled.
Finally, when I realized she wasn’t going to budge this time, I surrendered with a sigh, raised my body into a full upright sitting position, and then held out my hands to her if only to get her off my case about it.
“You can’t just clean them once,” she said, pouring the water over the wounds. “You have to keep them clean. It’s not like we have antibiotics lying around if they get infected.” She peered in closer at my hands.
I watched her, letting her do what seemed important to her, and strangely enough I found myself comforted by it. It was different than the comfort I felt when with Evelyn Bouchard. With Evelyn, I was a man not only confiding in a friend, but also one who could fulfill my needs as a man. With Evelyn, I could let off steam, confess my secrets and my desires; I could talk about my family, but most of all, I could confront the darkness that consumed my heart every day. I never had to keep my feelings of rage bottled up inside with Evelyn. I could tell her anything, inflict upon her any pain I needed to release. Because Evelyn found her absolution in taking on my agony, my sins. Evelyn was my only means of escape, just as I was to her.
Thais was exactly the opposite.
With Thais, I had to be careful. I couldn’t kiss her lips, or feel her beneath my hands; I couldn’t lay her down and ravage her the way I needed. Even right now, as she cleaned the tiny specks of dirt and debris from the top of my fingers, I needed a release. Emotional. Physical. Spiritual. Sexual. But Thais was not Evelyn, and to violate her in that way, I knew I’d never forgive myself.
“How are your ribs feeling?” she asked.
She set the empty bottle down and peered in closer at my knuckles for one last look.
“They’re getting better,” I said, though I didn’t know if they were or not—they weren’t getting worse, and that was a good sign, I thought.
“I take it you were the doctor in the family?” I said in jest.
She looked up from my knuckles, and she smiled. It alone, in that one fraction of a moment, did something to me—it softened my heart for her, made me feel even more protective of her than I already did. Such innocence. Dear God, why did You leave someone like her in my charge? I didn’t much believe in God—I used to—but that never stopped me from talking to Him every now and then. Just in case.
Thais released my hand.
“I guess I was the doctor,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t know much except what I learned reading in books, and from the things my father taught me, but I did what I could.”
She moved around to sit on the quilt. I sat still, watching her, listening with great interest.
“I learned about herbs and medicinal plants mostly, but I know how to do a lot of other things—I even helped build one of the houses in our town.”
I raised both brows.
“Oh, so you’re a carpenter and a doctor?” I smiled.
Thais blushed and shrugged.
“And a farmer and a fisherwoman and even a teacher.” She seemed very proud of what she could do, a little excited even, to be sharing it with me.
I laughed lightly under my breath.
“What’s so funny?” She tilted her head to one side, curiosity creating lines in her forehead.
“Fisherwoman,” I echoed. “Just never heard that before.”
She crossed her arms.
“Women are just as good at the things men can do,” she said with offense.
I waved a hand in front of me, shaking my head. “No, that’s not what I meant,” I said, apologetically. “The word—fisherwoman—I’ve just never heard it before. It caught me off guard, is all.” I went to lay back down on my spot beside her, wincing with my movements, until settling on my back again. “Fuck, I say the dumbest things sometimes—and I curse a lot. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She laid down, reached out and tugged on her dress, tucking it between her legs. “My sister used to say: Fuck all those heathens!” She laughed, and then looked over at me. “I’m not a child, Atticus; no need to mind your tongue around me.”
I laughed a little, too.
“Well, in any case,” I said, “I believe you were a great fisherwoman.”
Her face flushed with heat.
“I was,” she admitted, and a smile glowed in her eyes. “In fact, I still am.”
I admired her face longer than I’d intended.
“Good,” I said with a nod, and looked away. “You’ll have to show just how great soon—there’s nothing left in our bags to eat.”
The reality of that fact stole the good mood from our faces. I gazed up at the drafty ceiling again, and was quiet for a long time, thinking about food.
“I’ll catch us some fish,” Thais said after a moment.
“And I’ll hunt some meat,” I added.
The clouds drifted past the moon, dimming what little light the barn borrowed from it. It was so quiet—too quiet. I was used to the bustling life of Lexington City, the chaos and the greed and the occasional sound of gunfire. But I could get used to this, I thought. I could get used to this…
The soft sound of Thais’ breath as she slept next to me was calming in my ears. She lay on her side with her back to me, her arms pressed against her chest, caged by her drawn knees. Her dress had come loose, just shy of revealing her panties; I took my jacket and draped it over her.
After an hour of fighting against it, I lost my battle with sleep and fell into darkness unaccompanied by dreams.