The call had gone through and she’d heard her father’s voice for the first time in two years.
Within twenty-four hours, Lucy had found herself hidden in a cargo truck, crossing the border into Canada. She was sealed inside a crate that was meant to contain artisanal patio bricks, but really had half a futon on the floor, a battery-powered reading lamp, a stack of magazines, a box of meal replacement bars, water, and a bedpan. Not the most fragrant of environments after the first twelve hours. After she was through with the magazines, and after she had lain or sat in every position possible in her four-by-four-foot box, she had been dying to stand, and on the cusp of losing her mind. The box had been jostled and battered around, and there had always been rumbling. Lucy had never known where she was.
When the top had finally popped off and she had seen her parents and grandparents in haz-mat suits, looking down at her with tears in their eyes, she had felt like she was being born anew. Lucy remembered looking around at her grandparents’ lush estate and seeing the world as titanic. Endless. She’d thought the feeling would’ve passed in the days after, but it hadn’t. They’d set her up in the guesthouse, where they’d sealed all the windows and vents shut. They talked to her every day on the phone, standing just outside her window. Even now, weeks later, she still found the world breathtaking in its enormity, and Lucy was grateful to be a tiny part of it all, to be part of her family, to be one of the living.
South of the border, the US government touted victory. The claim was that there were no more infected. It was all over the news, with a public divided over the morality of how the job had been done. Canadian news coverage was more condemnatory, mainly because the virus hadn’t made it to Canada. The reports were always hard for Lucy to watch. They made her think of what had happened at McKinley, and how the kids had come spilling over the top of the farm wall, climbing the fence, running for their lives, and how she’d gunned it out of there. How she had left David behind. How she’d seen Ritchie while she was on the run, and he’d told her that Will had been killed.
All the food in the world, this safe house she lived in, and all the love her family could pile on her, none of it could heal the crack that ran through her heart now that Will was gone. She appreciated her family more than she could put into words, but her sorrow couldn’t be pacified. None of her good fortune made it all right that Will’s life had stopped that day.
There was a knock at the kitchen door.
The door had a window panel in it, and there was David on the other side. She nearly fainted. He mimed the action of opening the door. He smiled behind the face shield of his mask. Lucy unlocked the door. This was crazy. No one in her family liked to come inside, none of them had. They were too afraid, but here came David in a gas mask, walking in like it was nothing. She swore the colors in the room grew richer and more luminous as soon as he’d entered. He still had that power over her, a gravitational pull that she couldn’t fight.
“I can’t believe you’re here.”
He hugged her right away, and it felt good to be touched again.
“You’re alive,” David said. He squeezed harder. “Thank God, you’re alive.”
“You too,” she said. It was the best response she could summon, her emotions were swarming on her.
They separated enough to look into each other’s eyes. She wanted to kiss him.
“I’m still infected,” she said.
“Yeah, your parents told me.”
“I really wanna make out.”
David laughed. He pinched her arm playfully as they separated, and then he bopped around the kitchen, checking the place out.
“So, how many bathrooms you got here? Is there more than one bedroom?”
“What are you, apartment hunting?”
“I was thinking about it.”
“What do you mean?”
David’s jovial manner grew more serious.
“I want to be around. To make sure you transition out and everything turns out fine. I already talked to your folks about it.”
“You mean stay here? In this house, in a gas mask all day and night?”
David shrugged. “Yeah.”
“It could be months.”
“I left you behind once, and you had to face McKinley alone. I can’t forgive myself for that.”
“You’re too hard on yourself,” she said.
He shook his head.
“I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re okay.”
“Now I’m really upset that we can’t kiss,” she said with a little laugh and a few tears.
He walked to her and took her hands in his.
“Will you give me a tour?” he said.
Lucy’s smile went away. She knew David hadn’t meant to say his brother’s name, but hearing David say the word will made her blood go cold.
“I’m so sorry about Will,” she said.
David’s light and airy demeanor crumbled.
“He …,” David said, but couldn’t find the words. She saw a deep anguish in him that matched her own and far exceeded it. If she had a crack in her heart, David must have a chasm.
Lucy’s cell phone rang. It was her mom’s phone technically, but she’d been using it. Her mom was calling. It was pretty much always her mom calling. She walked into the living room, to the window that faced the main house, and saw her mother rushing up the sloped lawn. Her mom’s baggy linen outfit was fluttering in the wind, and she shook her phone in her outstretched hand. She was in such a hurry that she’d left the door hanging open in the big house behind her. Her mom never did that. Lucy answered the call as her mother ran.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
“Lucy, I don’t know how to tell you this,” her mom said as she made it to the window and put her fingers to the glass. There was a glob of blackberry jelly on her mom’s blouse.
“What? You’re scaring me,” Lucy said.
“It’s just—” Her mom’s mascara was smeared. She’d been crying. “I’m going to patch your uncle in.”
Uncle Phillip? Her uncle was a physician, and he’d come to give her a checkup a week ago to make sure her injuries were healing properly. They’d sworn that he was family and she could trust him, but now she wondered if that was true.
There was a quiet click.
“Hello, Phillip, are you there?” her mom said.